“[T]hey were Black, female, and in a profession still striving for equality and respect within the medical community.”1

This quote embodies many of the intersecting challenges that Black nursing students have faced since the emergence of the modern nursing profession in the United States. White women founded many of the first nursing schools after the Civil War, in a time when racism and segregation dominated American society. Black women were almost entirely excluded from the educational and professional opportunities that white women received through these nurse training programs.

Beginning in the 1890’s, Black doctors, nurses, their communities, and their white allies created a network of hospital and nurse training schools. These institutions helped Black nurses to get training and Black patients to get better healthcare. Nursing students in these hospitals worked long hours for little pay, and the male doctors who ran the hospitals often enforced strict rules and discipline on their students. White nurses in white hospital training programs also faced harsh working conditions, but Black nursing students had the added challenge that their hospitals constantly struggled to have enough funding because the Black community had less wealth than the white community.

Yet Black women who went through these training programs became important activists for justice and equality for Black nurses and the Black community more broadly. They fought to integrate the Red Cross, the Army and Nurse Navy Corps, and, eventually, hospitals and nursing schools. Black nursing students faced new challenges after legal integration in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They struggled to gain leadership positions in nursing organizations and to deal with racism from white teachers and classmates. They also fought to improve access to healthcare for the Black community. Black nurses have long been trusted and respected leaderes in the Black community. Black nurses and nursing students also have been and continue to be on the frontlines of battles for gender, race, and healthcare justice in Chicago and around the United States. 

In this section you can learn more about the history of nursing education for Black nurses, as well as about nursing schools in the Chicago area that served many or only Black nursing students.