Even with this step forward there were still disproportionately low numbers of Black nurses serving – and those who did serve faced very restricted nursing assignments . In 1941 , despite the overwhelming need for nursing expertise , only 56 Black nurses were admitted to the ANC ( NWHM , 2019 ). While some were assigned to segregated units , most were assigned to care for German prisoners of war ( POWs ) ( Gregory , 2001 ). After Black nurses ’ long struggle to join the ANC , it felt demeaning to be assigned to care for the enemy ( Clark , 2018 ). Work in the POW camps , which were scattered throughout the Southwestern United States , was arduous . Despite acceptance into the ANC , Jim Crow laws were in full effect at the POW camps and excluded Black nurses from staff meetings and social events ( Clark , 2018 ). In addition , the nurses were often called racial slurs by German POWs , American servicemen , and white Southerners . Not only were Black nurses subjected to quotidian racism and segregationist policies in the camps , their skills were also severely underutilized because most POWs were relatively healthy ( Clark , 2018 ). Under these conditions , Staupers and Riddle pushed forward , knowing that more steps needed to be taken on the path toward equal opportunity .
Appeal to Eleanor Roosevelt In 1944 , Staupers met with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to discuss the conditions of Black nurses in the ANC ( Encyclopaedia Britannica , 2020 ). After their meeting , conditions for Black nurses in the POW camps improved . However , the quotas for Black nurses were still deplorably low . In 1945 , despite thousands of Black nurse applicants , the War Department proposed
In response , the nurses organized a national letter-writing campaign to demand that Black nurses be included
“ It is absolutely unbelievable that in times like these , when the world is going forward , that there are leaders in our American life who are going backward . It is further unbelievable that these leaders have become so blindly and unreasonably un-American that they have forced our wounded men to face the tragedy of death rather than allow trained nurses to aid because these nurses ’ skins happen to be of a different color .” ( NWHM , 2019 ).
Under mounting public pressure , the War Department announced plans to eliminate the quotas and accepted qualified Black nurses into the Army and Navy ( Encyclopaedia Britannica , 2020 ). Thanks to the tireless work of civil rights leaders and nursing leaders like Mabel Keaton Staupers , the Nursing Draft bill was never enacted .
By the end of the war , nearly 60,000 nurses served in
In 1951 , the ANA began to accept Black nurses as members , which led the NACGN to merge with the now fully
18 NSNA IMPRINT n APRIL / MAY 2021 n www . nsna . org