A Snippet of Life in the Segregated South and Trailblazing Black Nurses

As a child of the South in the late 50s and early 60s, the separation of the races was so common place, that is was just normal. We knew nothing different. In an odd way, the separation was a real shelter for a young Black child. It let us learn of the incredible strength, accomplishment and sense of pride that existed in the Black Community, particularly for me in Richmond, VA.

By 1960, my Grandfather, Herman Cornelius Harris, used to pick me up from my segregated Van de Vyver Catholic elementary school every day. We would drive to pick up my Grandmother, Nancy Jane Porter Harris, from work. She was the head nurse at the Retreat for the Sick Hospital. Through a child's eyes, I simply enjoyed waiting for her 3 PM shift to end, talking with the other nurses; getting that vanilla ice cream cup to keep me occupied, while she closed down. "Nurse Harris" as every one affectionately called her, led a team of about a dozen nurses, who took care of patients in two huge, all Black, wards—one for women and one for men.

It was not until I got a little older and desegregation took hold on Richmond, that I really realized that my Grandmother worked in the basement of the Retreat Hospital—because that was the only part of the hospital that served Blacks. She, like her colleagues, worked hard to ensure that every patient received quality care. It was just the way it was. It was not until desegregation that Nurse Harris was asked to head up a team nurses—White and Black. As part of that, she was moved to an upper floor. In 1960, I never knew or processed that upper floors existed in the hospital—it simply was not a part of my community.

My Grandmother retired in 1972 from Retreat for the Sick Hospital. There was a huge article in the local Richmond Times Dispatch and the Richmond Afro newspapers about her accomplishment as the first Black head nurse there. I still have those articles.

I recently went to see a relative who was hospitalized in the same Retreat Hospital a few months ago. I met a Black doctor who heads up infectious diseases. I started talking about my Grandmother. Since the doctor was a native of Connecticut, he was amazed that the segregation in the hospital existed as late as the late 1960s. The nurses working that day at the station overheard us talking and began to ask me questions about my Grandmother. They too had heard stories about the Black nurses in the basement in the 50s and 60s, but had never spoken with anyone who had known them or was related to them.

All the while, I could just feel my Grandmother's spirit and her smile.