es 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 a“ Nurse Draft” bill( Editors, 1945). The bill intended to keep pace with the growing number of wounded servicemen – while still excluding Black nurses from service. Staupers and Riddle were appalled. How could the government consider a draft without accepting qualified Black nurses who were lining up to serve?
In response, the nurses organized a national letter-writing campaign to demand that Black nurses be included in the draft( Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020). The campaign was supported by national civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union( Mc- Neill, 2020). Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. said:
“ 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 the ANC yet fewer than 600 were Black
( Tomblin, 1996). Three years later, President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which desegregated the military, including the ANC( Evans, 2021).
In 1951, the ANA began to accept Black nurses as members, which led the NACGN to merge with the now fully integrated ANA( AAREG, 2020). Throughout this pivotal era of nursing history, Black nurses fulfilled Brigadier General Benjamin O’ Davis’ s expectations in England and on the home front. These unsung heroes not only lived up to the tradition of the“ noble profession” of nursing but made groundbreaking advancements on the path toward racial equity in nursing.
References
African American Registry( AAREG) Editors.( 2020, May 2). National association of colored graduate nurses founded. Journal of the registry. https:// aaregistry. org / story / national-association-of-colored-graduate-nurses-founded /
Clark, A.( 2018, May 15). The army’ s first black nurses were relegated to caring for nazi prisoners of war. Smithsonian magazine. https:// www. smithsonianmag. com / history / armys-first-blacknurses-had-tend-to-german-prisoners-war-180969069 /
Clark, A.( 2019, June 18). When black nurses were relegated to care for german POWs. History. https:// www. history. com / news / black-nurses-world-war-ii-truman-desegregation-military
Editors.( 1945).“ Nurse draft” bill passed by the house. Amer J Nurs, 45( 4), 255 – 256. https://
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