Sallie Tucker Allen
Founder of the Association of Black Nursing Faculty and Tucker Publications, Inc
Sallie Tucker Allen received her Bachelor’s of Nursing from Hampton University and Master’s of Science from Hunter College. As part of her dissertation research for her PhD at Northwestern University, she interviewed almost two dozen Black nurse faculty teaching in nursing baccalaureate programs in Illinois. These nurses came to recognize the need to work together to promote their research, add to scholarly discourse, and mitigate healthcare disparities. They began planning in 1986 and established the Association of Black Nursing Faculty in Higher Education by 1987, later shortening their name to the Association of Black Nursing Faculty (ABNF). Starting first within Illinois and later becoming national, they held their first conference in Washington, D.C. in 1988 on the topic of funded nurse research. Dr. Tucker-Allen held three terms as president from its founding until 1992.
To address a publishing gap of the scholarly work of nurse reserachers of color, she created Tucker Publications, Inc in 1987. In over two decades, the publishing house published books, directories, and three peer reviewed journals — The ABNF Journal, Journal of Cultural Diversity: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and The Journal of Theory Construction and Testing. The five editions of national directories of minority nursing faculty (published between between 1988 and 1999) became the foremost reference to identify nurse leaders of color, and the published journals are widely credited with the dissemination of hundreds of articles that led to recognition, tenure, and promotional opportunities for minority academicians. Aside from the founding of ABNF and Tucker Publications, she had a notable career as professor and dean at several nursing schools. She has received numerous accolades, including: Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing; induction in three Halls of Fames; and served on the Minority Nurse Leadership Council for the Division of Nursing at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Deeper Dive: Hear Dr. Tucker-Allen’s keynote from 2013 or purchase her 1999 book on recruiting and retaining minority nursing students from Tucker Publications.
Sources
We sourced the above information from the ABNF website, The ABNF Journal, and the book The Path We Tread: Blacks in Nursing Worldwide 1854–1994 by M. Elizabeth Carnegie (p. 133)
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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