Making optometry more accessible for over 50 years

There are approximately 60,000 eye care professionals in the U.S. today. Of those, only 2%, or about 1,200, are Black.

February is Black History Month — the perfect time to highlight the people and organizations that help minority communities get eye care and thrive in the eye care profession. 

The National Optometric Association is the largest professional organization representing minority optometrists and optometry students. It has more than 800 members in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada, in a variety of clinical settings and studying at 23 schools and colleges of optometry. 

History of the National Optometric Association

Black eye doctors C. Clayton Powell, OD, and John L. Howlette, OD, believed that Black eye care professionals needed their own national organization. They wanted something separate from the American Optometric Association (AOA) that would focus on issues that were important to Black eye doctors. These included recruiting minority students for optometry school and supporting optometrists in minority communities.

After working to generate support for the idea, in 1969, Drs. Powell and Howlette invited 25 Black eye doctors from around the country to meet in Richmond, Virginia, and launch the National Optometric Association (NOA). 

At the time, Powell and Howlette were both members of the AOA, the national (and predominantly white) organization that supports eye doctors and increases access to eye care. Some AOA members didn’t think the NOA was needed because Black eye care professionals could be (and many already were) AOA members. Powell explained that while Black eye doctors could join the national AOA, they had to belong to their local AOA chapter first and were often not accepted.   

While some feared the NOA would compete against the AOA, the intention was actually to give Black optometrists a louder voice, both within the AOA and outside of it.