Nursing in WWII: Mabel Keaton Staupers

Katherine Stuchlik

Before Rosa Parks planted herself in the front of the bus and in civil rights history, Mabel Keaton Staupers stuck a syringe in the side of prejudice and gave herself and fellow African American nurses a much deserved leg up. 

Staupers, born in 1890 in Barbados, West Indies, arrived in the United States with her family at age thirteen.  A graduate of the Freedman’s Hospital School of nursing in 1917, she was quickly confronted by the antagonistic racial climate of the medical world.1 Prejudice and segregation had infiltrated every aspect of American society.  Military medical professionals were explicitly prevented from treating patients of skin colors other than their own and it was generally expected that civilian patients should seek care from doctors of their own race.  The army went as far as to create separate field hospitals for African American wounded soldiers that were staffed by African American personnel.       This sentiment that the doctor/patient relationship should be governed by race would not change until the demands of World War II forced an alteration of policy, but not opinion. This was the central concern of the life and work of Staupers.

In 1934 Staupers had just completed service as the executive secretary of the Harlem Tuberculosis Committee.  She continued to fight the discriminatory practices of the American Nurses Association and the National League of Nursing Education through accepting a position as the first paid executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NAGCN) 2.  A fellow African American nurse, Martha Franklin, formed this organization in 1908.  The NAGCN outlined three specific goals—improve professional standards, develop leadership among African American nurses and dismantle the discrimination that surrounded African American nursing.3

As executive secretary of NAGCN, Staupers quickly realized that the public was suddenly aware of nursing and its importance to the soldiers fighting in World War II; this would be the opportunity to educate an ignorant populace and gain needed sympathy.  Staupers enlisted the help of Eleanor Roosevelt to assist with awareness and organize a letter-writing campaign to FDR on behalf of the NAGCN and African American nurses serving in the military.  African American nurses were only partially admitted to the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, where their duties were severely limited and they were not admitted to the Navy at all.  The immediate goal of the NAGCN and the letter writing campaign was full integration of African American nurses into the Armed Forces Nurse Corps. 

Mabel Keaton Staupers and the NAGCN saw the fruits of their labors in 1944, as the first unit of African American nurses arrived for active duty in England.  By 1945 the Army and Navy fully accepted black nurses and by 1948 the American Nursing Association accepted all capable nurses, regardless of race. 4  Staupers work in cooperation with the NAGCN and NAACP helped dismantle the discrimination that African American nurses faced.  She transformed the landscape of nursing for generations to come and alleviated the oppression of her own.

1 “The Hall of Fame Inductees: Mabel Keaton Staupers,” American Nursing Association, accessed Nov. 30, 2005, available from <http://www.ana.org/hot/stauperm/htm>; Internet.

2 “Hall of Fame Inductees: Mabel Keaton Staupers.”

3 “National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses Records 1908-1951,” New York Public Library Digital Collection, accessed Nov. 30, 2005, http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/ead/scm/scmnacgn/@Generic__ BookView; Internet.

4Doyle, “Staupers, Mabel Keaton,” Encyclopedia Britannica's Guide to Black History, accessed Nov. 28, 2005, copyright 1994-2000;available from <http://search.eb.com/Blackhistory/article.do?n KeyValue=2967>; Internet.