Black History Month - Celebrating African-American Nurse Heroes

This month we honor the lives and legacies of these awe-inspiring nurses who broke down barriers and battled prejudice to serve humankind.

Numerous African-American nurses helped to shape nursing into what it is today. These individuals faced a range of barriers, rising above enslavement, racism, discrimination, poverty, and other seemingly insurmountable challenges in their pursuit of nursing. While an exhaustive list of these contributors is impossible, we’ve chosen to honor a few individuals by name in the spirit of Black History Month.

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, which meant she was born free. She developed an early love of nursing, and by the age of 20, Mahoney was practicing as an untrained nurse’s assistant. Pay was poor, and she supplemented her earnings with janitorial duties at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. After 15 years of this situation, Mahoney was accepted into the New England Hospital’s graduate nursing program. The training was grueling, including 16 hour shifts on ward duty overseeing six patients at a time. Mahoney was one of only four students out of 42 enrolled to graduate from the 16-month program. With this accomplishment, Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first African-American in the United States to hold a professional nursing license. She practiced nursing for the next forty years, primarily in private practice due to the discrimination faced by black women in the workplace.

Mabel Keaton Staupers was born in Barbados, West Indies in 1890. At the age of 13, Staupers emigrated to the United States. 14 years later, she became a registered nurse. Staupers made it her goal to treat the African-American community living in poverty. She organized an inpatient clinic for African-Americans with tuberculosis at the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium and served as the Sanatorium’s first superintendent from 1920 to 1922. This clinic was one of only a few facilities in New York that allowed black physicians to treat patients. From this point forward, Staupers was a champion of health promotion and anti-discrimination. Her accolades include serving as the executive secretary for the Harlem Tuberculosis Committee, becoming the first executive director of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NAGN), becoming the president of the NAGN, and initiating campaigns to end the U.S. Army bans on, and hiring caps for, black nurses serving in the Army. Her bravery opened many doors for future minority nurses.

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in 1797. Her early life was unimaginably difficult. She was born into slavery and spent 29 years living with hard physical labor, beatings, a forced marriage, and being sold to master after master. After her escape to freedom in 1826, Truth dedicated her life to the advancement of human rights. She championed abolitionism, women’s suffrage, and desegregation, among other causes, and was sought out by other reformers of the day, such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony. In addition to these achievements, Sojourner Truth acted as a nurse during the Civil War, caring for wounded Union soldiers. She would later go on to advocate before Congress for the establishment of a formal nursing education program.

Harriet Tubman, born into slavery around 1820, escaped to the North - and freedom - in 1849. Rather than staying safely outside of Southern slave owners’ reach, Tubman made repeated trips into the Deep South in order to help other slaves escape using the network known as the “Underground Railroad.” Her incredible heroism led to freedom for more than 300 individuals. Tubman’s service to humankind did not stop there. Throughout the Civil War, Tubman served as a Union scout, spy, and nurse. Her knowledge of herbal remedies allowed her to ease the suffering of soldiers when traditional medicine was unavailable. After the war, Harriet Tubman cared for the elderly in her home until procuring the funds for the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged.

Susan “Susie” King Taylor was born into slavery on a plantation in Georgia in 1848. In violation of existing law at the time, Taylor received an education and could read and write. After being freed by Union troops during the Civil War, she traveled with the troops, caring for the sick and wounded. Taylor had no formal medical training and received no pay for her labors. In addition to acting as a nurse, she taught many men to read and write. Susie Taylor would be an avid educator for the rest of her life, teaching adults and children alike.

The legacies of these inspiring nurses have had a lasting impact. Their effects can be felt in the establishment of formal nursing education, in greater representation in the nursing field, in higher standards of patient care...the list goes on. Their selfless attitudes in the face of hardship and, frequently, of hatred raise them to the level of nursing heroes.

According to 2022 BLS data, 14.5 percent of registered nurses are Black or African American, 8.9 percent are Asian, and 8.1 percent are Hispanic or Latino. As compared to the general population, minorities are underrepresented in nursing. That is slowly changing, though, with minority representation increasing, especially among nursing students and new nurses.