As a teen, LoRissia Autery vowed she would never live in Jasper. After she became an OB-GYN, she learned a valuable lesson: never say never.

Words by Justin Hunter | Images by Blakeney Clouse

Dr. LoRissia Autery’s journey to Jasper was like a romance movie on Netflix. The main characters are introduced to one another, chemistry develops, and love triumphs in the end. 

Like the female lead in those movies, Dr. Autery fell in love, but it wasn’t a dashing young man who captured her heart. It was a small Alabama town. 

And it definitely wasn’t love at first sight. 

Autery, now an OB/GYN with Walker Women’s Specialists, was in the Midfield High School marching band when she first visited Jasper in the summer of 1992. In those days, the Midfield Patriots hosted their band camp at Walker College, now Bevill State Community College. At the time, Autery, who is from Birmingham, had zero interest in moving here.

“Back then, you could not have paid me a million dollars to live in Jasper, Alabama,” she admits. “I was 16 or 17. I had heard stories of the perception of African Americans in Jasper. There was no way I could live in Walker County because I believed a young black woman had no business being out here.” 

Many folks from metro areas didn’t see Walker County as being welcoming to people of color or as a place of diversity. As a black physician, Autery has helped break down racial barriers and misnomers in people’s hearts and minds. “I have learned some, and I think people around me have learned some, because I may be the only person of color they come into contact with,” she says. “And, I want them to know that I am not a unicorn or an exception. There are many more educated black women out there.”

Autery came of age during the 1980s. Raised in a home that valued God and education, her parents were the first in their families to attend school and graduate from college. They imparted this love for God and learning into Autery and her sister. 

“When I was little, I wanted to be a dancer and model,” Autery says. “My sister wanted to be a doctor. I’ve always kind of followed her. Basically, God put it on her heart, so I could become a doctor. I knew that once I got out of high school, I wanted to be a doctor and deliver babies.” 

 In high school, Autery scheduled her first appointment with an OB/GYN without her mom’s assistance. It wasn’t until she was older that she recognized God was nudging her toward her destiny.

A self-described “lifelong learner,” Autery graduated from Midfield High in 1992 and obtained her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She knew it was foreordained for her to attend medical school at Howard University in Washington, D.C., because God told her she would go.

Proverbs 30:5 says “Every word from God is tested.” Enduring that process produces maturity, a lesson Autery learned at UAB when an advisor told her she wasn’t “competitive enough to become a physician.” Undeterred, Autery applied to medical school, and soon she received a letter announcing that she was on Howard University’s alternate list for acceptance. 

Autery waited for a call back for a year, but the call never came. “I had a cathartic moment when med school started, and I wasn’t in yet. I broke down,” she says. “I had, I don’t know if you would call it a dream, that night. It was God saying, ‘I didn’t tell you when, but that you would go to Howard.’”

The door to medical school was closed for a season, allowing Autery to complete her master’s degree in education at UAB. The following year, the door opened.

“I had the feeling of, ‘Is this really happening?’” she says. “Then I was overwhelmed, in a good way, to know that my dream, my calling, was coming to fruition. I knew ‘to whom much is given, much is expected.’ I knew my life was God’s gift to me, what I make of it is my gift to Him.”

Autery graduated medical school in 2006, completed her residency at Tulane University in New Orleans, and opened a private practice at Tulane –Lakeside Hospital. 

In 2011, her story took an interesting turn. “One day, I put my resume out on the internet,” Autery recalls. “The next day, I got a call from Walker Baptist. They were interested in me. I was like, ‘What in the world?’”

It was as if the city of Jasper was calling to ask her for a date. Reluctantly, Autery said yes. 

“I thought, ‘I do not want to move to Jasper, but it is drawing me,’” she remembers. “It was like dating, when you like somebody you aren’t supposed to like.”

In time, Jasper’s irresistible Southern charm won Autery’s heart and love triumphed in the end. The small town she once saw as an unwelcoming place is now her home.

Thankfully, no one had to pay her a million dollars. 78