UNSUNG HEROES IN HISTORY:
Black Nurses during World War II
By Veronica R. Bucher
This article is a reprint from Imprint April / May 2021. This article won second place in the 2021 American Association for the History of Nursing( AAHN) Essay Contest. To learn more, visit: www. aahn. org
On a summer day in 1944, 63 nurses from the United States Army Nurse Corps( ANC) disembarked at a seaport in England. It was in the midst of World War II and the first time that a Black nursing unit had been deployed to Europe. The nurses were destined for the 168th Station Hospital near Warrington( Warrington Museum & Art Gallery [ WMAG ], 2019). As the uniformed women huddled together, they were greeted by Brigadier General Benjamin O’ Davis, the first Black General to serve in the U. S. Army( U. S. Army Center of Military History, 2021). O’ Davis welcomed the women, each bearing a white armband with a small red cross. She told them,“ You are the first colored nurses to come to this area. I know that you are going to live up to all of the tradition of your noble profession and the American people expect great of you,”( Potter & De Meo, 2002). Though it was not explicitly stated, everyone on the platform knew that it had taken much more than
28 NSNA Imprint
an Army ship crossing to bring these nurses to England.
At the onset of U. S. entry into the war, especially after the 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans from all professions and backgrounds were inspired to serve their country. Thousands of Black nurses from all over the United States patriotically applied for nursing positions within the ANC( Clark, 2019). What these applicants did not know was that, despite the high demand for nurses, the ANC would deny every single application with a letter stating that there were“ no provisions in Army regulations for the appointment of colored nurses”( WMAG, 2019). During World War I, the American Nurses Association( ANA) membership and exclusionary training facility requirements indirectly barred Black nurses from service( National Women’ s History Museum [ NWHM ], 2019). This time, the exclusion was more direct.
In the face of systemic discrimination, nurses from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses( NACGN) fought for equal treatment and their right to serve. The NACGN was the Black nurses’ answer to the ANA because, at that time, the ANA did not offer membership to Black nurses( African American Registry [ AAREG ], 2020). NACGN Executive Secretary Mabel Keaton Staupers, alongside President Estelle Masse Riddle, fought tenaciously for the elimination of the ANC’ s discriminatory requirements( AAREG, 2020). As a result of these nurses’ diligent organizing and advocating, the War Department finally began accepting Black nurses in 1940( Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020).
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 nurs-