Nurses In The Civil Rights Movement

A black student at a “whites-only” Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina; a Freedom Rider in Jackson, Mississippi; a participant in the March on Washington; a community organizer for the Freedom Summer; two marchers from Selma to Montgomery—one a black nun, the other a white activist murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. What these women have in common—in addition to being dedicated civil rights activists—is that they were nurses. One hundred years after slavery African Americans in the South were still subject to the Jim Crow laws that banned them from using public, tax-supported, “whites-only” facilities—including schools, libraries, parks, and hospitals. In the 1950s and 1960s, as increasing numbers of Americans became aware of these injustices, the desire for racial equality reached its peak and the civil rights movement was born. This article highlights the experiences of five nurses and one nursing student who joined tens of thousands of other citizens in taking a stand for social justice.