Dr. Ernestine Brown Small: Activist, Leader, Scholar

With intelligence, determination, and courage, Ernestine Brown Small, born into a family of rural sharecroppers in Northampton County, became the 34th President of NCNA. Small's parents were unable to finish high school because they had to work to help feed their families during the Great Depression. At age 16, Small completed all the education available to her in the segregated, 2-room schoolhouse in her Pleasant Hill community. With the encouragement of her teachers and family, Small was accepted into the BSN program at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. She was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society. After graduating at age 20, Small took a job at the segregated Moses Cone Hospital (MCH) in Greensboro, NC. That same year, 1963, the hospital was legally forced to integrate its facilities. Small was chosen by the administration to be the first African American to eat in the formerly all-white hospital cafeteria. This was one of her first acts promoting civil rights.