Brig. Hazel Johnson Brown
First Black Chief of the United States Army Nurse Corps
Brigadier General Hazel Johnson Brown earned her nursing credentials from Harlem Hospital School of Nursing and graduated in 1950, after being denied enrollment from nursing school in Pennsylvania due to discrimination. She began her career as a nurse in the operating room. She joined the Army Nurse Corps seven years after the military was integrated while pursuing further education. She went on to receive and her BSN at Villanova in 1959, a Master’s in nursing education from Columbia University Teacher’s College in 1963, and a PhD at the Catholic University of America in 1978. Johnson became director and assistant dean of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing and was ultimately promoted to chief. She then became the first Black woman and first chief with a doctorate degree to hold the role of brigadier general in the Department of Defense.
In her position as brigadier general, she oversaw more than 7,000 army nurses and was named Army Nurse Of The Year twice. She published the first Standards of Practice for the Army Nurse Corps and opened access to academic scholarships for Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) nursing students, including clinical nursing summer camps for ROTC cadets. Her breadth of leadership went beyond the military. She held a notable career in academia as a professor at Georgetown University and George Mason University and American Nurse Association. Her expertise, years of service, and years spent educating nurses around the world is deserving of recognition and honor in both the nursing field and beyond.
Sources
We sourced information for the above biography from Seven Nurses Who Changed History Forever and the Army Women’s Foundation.
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