The seeds of the organization extend back to 1900. In that year, approximately 200 professionals gathered together to form Washington, D.C.'s Washington Society of Colored Dentists, which was retitled in 1907 to the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society. On May 1, 1901, a National Association of Colored Dentists was founded by dentist David A. Ferguson at Howard University College of Dentistry, but it failed to take hold, ceasing meetings after 1906. Since black dentists were still denied membership in such organizations as the American Dental Association, and since dentists felt sidelined in the African-American National Medical Association (NMA), Ferguson tried again in 1913, forming with a total of 29 black dentists the Tri-State Dental Association. The rapid expansion of this association required its renaming in 1918, when it became the Interstate Dental Association with members representing 14 states. The organization continued to expand, including a 1928 affiliation with the recently formed Commonwealth Dental Society of New Jersey. At a meeting of the Commonwealth Dental Society of New Jersey in Bordentown in 1932, a national organization was proposed, and the Interstate Dental Association became the National Dental Association. In 1940, the NDA, which had formerly been associated with the NMA, went fully independent. In 1941, it issued a journal, The Bulletin.
