Georgia's twentieth century public health nurses: A social history of racial relations

In Georgia during the early twentieth century Jim Crow "separate but equal" mentality sifted like blowing sand into every crevice of society. Life under Jim Crow, however, was never equal. This study examines the way in which Georgia's twentieth-century Black and white public health nurses responded to issues of race in their early personal lives and into their professional careers. Differences in racial experiences were noted between those born and reared in rural and urban communities, and those who moved in and out of the South for military and post-graduate education. In this group, the effect of the depression, World War II, and the coming of civil rights were specific historical time periods that applied to their experiences with race.;Racial customs were distinctive in each public health setting examined: in the cities of Atlanta, Savannah, and Macon, and in rural areas in various regions of Georgia. The examination of the interviews from The Georgia Nursing History Project disclosed differing perceptions of race and racial issues among Black and white public health nurses as they discussed their daily lives, their work, and their professional organizations. Discriminatory policies such as inequality of salaries and educational opportunity, and differences in titling, were largely overcome through social action by the Black nurses with the support and encouragement they found in their separate nursing organizations.;The amount of awareness of inequalities due to race by the White nurses varied from denial, to feelings of sympathy, and in some, hope for an end to segregation. Changes in the health departments brought about by law in the 1960s transpired smoothly. There is no indication that the white nurses interviewed opposed changes in racial customs in the health departments, but none participated in actions of social change with their Black colleagues. The interviews show the difficulty in overcoming racial attitudes instilled from childhood and reinforced by living within a segregated society. These attitudes and values are evident in the narratives of the nurses who so willingly shared their experiences to preserve a portion of the history of public health nursing in Georgia. Race was, and is, an important concept that makes this history unique.