Essential Questions (choose 1 and modify jigsaw questions accordingly):

•  Why did all-white nursing schools and institutions begin to accept Black nurses? 
• How have Black nurses made gains towards equality in U.S. society? 
• How does justice advance in society?
• How do people react to injustice? Is there a best way to react to injustice?
• Does racial equality depend on government action?

Learning Objectives (choose 1 and modify jigsaw questions accordingly)

• SWBAT compose an argument about why all-white nursing institutions (schools, hospitals) started accepting Black nurses, using evidence from 2 of the provided sources.
• SWBAT make an argument about what strategies Black nurses used to react to injustice and make gains towards equality, using evidence from 2 of the provided sources.
• SWBAT make an argument about how justice advances in society within the context of the post-WWII era, using evidence from 2 of the provided sources.
• SWBAT make a claim about whether racial equality depends on government action using evidence from 2 of the provided sources.

• Perspectives: Identify the role of individuals, groups, and institutions in people’s struggle for safety, freedom, equality, and justice (SS.H.7.9-12).
• Communicating Conclusions: Construct and evaluate explanations and arguments using multiple sources and relevant, verified information (SS.IS.6.9-12).
• Developing Claims and Using Evidence: Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to revise or strengthen claims (SS.IS.5.9-12).

Introduction:

In this lesson, students will explore the history of the racial integration of nursing schools and workplaces and analyze various primary sources in order to develop their own argument about why integration of nursing happened in the years after World War Two. Students will learn about a lesser-known civil rights organization: the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) and read sources that NACGN leaders wrote about this history. 

This lesson provides students with an opportunity to engage with questions about the most effective forms of social justice activism as well as the limits and strengths of primary sources.

This lesson can be a standalone lesson that would fit within units about the Civil Rights Movement, World War Two, healthcare justice, and the intersections of race and gender. 

Within the Teaching Care sequence, this lesson comes after a lesson about Black nursing schools that were founded in response to racism and segregation. 

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Activity Plan:

1) Introductory activity: look at images recruiting nurses during WWII, discuss: what is the idealized image of what a nurse looks like? What qualities does she have? 

Assessments 

• Source analysis worksheets
• Jigsaw graphic organizer (rubric included)

Materials

• Historical sources

Historical Context (for teachers): modified from Mapping Care)

When the nursing profession emerged after the Civil War, its leaders and institutions reflected the ideology that Black people were inferior. Black nurses were usually limited to treating Black patients in segregated hospitals or wards. In the early 1900’s, white nurse  leaders pushed for state laws that required nurse licensing and registration. Many southern states forced Black nurses to take different licensing exams or refused to license them altogether, shutting them out of most job opportunities. And when Black nurses could find work, they were usually paid less than white nurses for the same duties.

Black nurses would not accept this situation quietly. In 1908, Martha Minerva Franklin, a Black nurse leader, helped to organize the creation of the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). The NACGN tackled many injustices, fighting discriminatory licensing laws, working to improve the quality of Black nursing schools, and operating a registry to help Black nurses find work. The NACGN also partnered with groups like the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the National Council of Negro Women on campaigns for Black voting rights and against Jim Crow segregation laws.

Among the NACGN’s greatest victories was the passage of the 1943 Bolton Act and the 1945 integration of military nursing under the leadership of Mabel Staupers and Estelle Massey Riddle Osborne. The leaders of the NACGN decided to dissolve the organization in 1951 and merge with the American Association of Nursing. 

Note for teachers regarding historical language: many of these primary sources, written by both Black and white authors, use the term “Negro.” It is important for teachers to provide students with a content warning and with historical context for this term. In the period when these authors were writing, many Black people considered “Negro” to be a term of respect, as compared to “colored.” It had very different connotations than the n-word, which white people used as a slur. In the 1960’s civil rights activists pushed for a shift from “Negro,” to “Black,” making it no longer socially acceptable for non-Black people to use the term “Negro.” In later decades, some Black activists pushed for use of the term “African American.” 

For more resources on this subject, see:

“A Note on Historical Language: 'Negro,' 'Colored,' 'Black,' and 'African American'” from African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology, by Amardeep Singh.

When Did the Word Negro Become Socially Unacceptable?, Jim Crow Museum website.

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Introductory Activity

• Why did all-white nursing schools and healthcare institutions begin to accept Black nurses? 
• How have Black nurses made gains towards equality in U.S. society? 
• How does justice advance in society?

“There are many reasons for our society’s disregard of nurses. First, and perhaps foremost, nursing is the most female of all professions…Thus, it is daunting to see beyond nurses’ femaleness, to move beyond the ingrained tendency to devalue the labor performed by women, and to develop an appreciation for the special skill they bring to their work. Second, we seldom encounter nurses as professionals until we are devastated by disease and incapacity. However, once health is regained nurses are quickly, perhaps gratefully, forgotten.”

Individual Analysis

Divide students into groups of 4. In each group, 1 student will examine 1 of the 5 provided sources using the source analysis worksheets.

Difficulty of sources (relative to each other, in terms of vocabulary & concept complexity): 
Source #1: moderate
Source #2: difficult
Source #3: moderate (includes a photo for analysis)
Source #4: easy
Source#5: difficult (only secondary source)

• Distribute 3 index cards to each students. Ask students to highlight three sentences that particularly stood out for them and write each sentence on the front of an index card. On the back, they should write a few sentences explaining why they chose that quote—what it meant to them, reminded them of, etc. They may have connected it to something that happened to them in their own life, to a film or book they saw or read, or to something that happened in history or is happening in current events. Also encourage them to consider the essential questions when choosing their sentences.

Same Source Comparison

Label one student A, one B, and the other C in each group. Invite the A students to read one of their chosen quotations to their group. Then students B and C discuss the quotation. What do they think it means? Why do they think these words might be important? To whom? After several minutes, ask the A students to read the back of their card (or to explain why they picked the quotation), thus having “the last word.” This process continues with the B students sharing and then the C students.

Jigsaw