BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " MABEL KEATON STAUPERS " WAS A PIONEER IN THE AMERICAN NURSING PROFESSION WHO BECAME AN ADVOCATE FOR RACIAL EQUALITY IN THE NURSING PROFESSION : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

BLACK           SOCIAL         HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                          

Mabel Keaton Staupers

Mabel Keaton Staupers (February 27, 1890 – November 29, 1989) was a pioneer in the American nursing profession. Faced with racial discrimination after graduating from nursing school, Staupers became an advocate for racial equality in the nursing profession.^[1]

Biography

Staupers was born on February 27, 1890, in Barbados, West Indies.^[2] In 1903, at the age of thirteen, she emigrated to the United States with her parents, Pauline and Thomas Doyle. She attended Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC, where she graduated with honors. After graduation, she worked as a private duty nurse.

Staupers fought for the inclusion of black nurses in World War II to the Army and Navy as the executive secretary of National Association of Graduate Colored Nurses (NAGCN). She wrote that "Negro nurses recognize that service to their country is a responsibility of citizenship."^[3]

She continued fighting for the full inclusion of nurses of all races in the US military, which was granted in January 1945. In 1948, the American Nursing Association followed suit and allowed African-American nurses to become members. In 1950, Staupers dissolved the NAGCN because she believed the organization had completed its mission. In 1951, the NAACP honored Stauper with the Spingarn Medal. Mabel K. Staupers during World War II assembled support and fought to stop the usage of quotas in the military.^[4] Quotas were used in the military to restrict the number of black nurses the military hired.^[4]

While working as a private nurse in Washington and New York, Staupers helped establish the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium.^[4] It was one of the few clinics founded to care for African Americans who had tuberculosis,^[4] at a time when other hospitals refused black medical experts privileges or staffing positions.^[4] Staupers served as Superintendent for the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium from 1920 to 1922.^[4] Staupers used her influence and management skills and became executive secretary of the Harlem Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association,^[4] a position she held for twelve years. She then in 1935 teamed up with Mary McLeod Bethune0, and they established theNational Council of Negro Women.^[4]