Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail
Founding Member of the American Indian Nurses Association
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was born on the Crow Indian Reservation in in Montana in 1903. After her parents passed when she was a young child, Susie left the reservation for Oklahoma. Her guardian at the time then sent her to Northfield Seminary school in Massachusetts. While there she worked as a housekeeper and babysitter to pay for her room and board. She experienced mistrust and cultural intolerance by the school administration along with a tiring schedule. Upon graduation, she went on to complete a nurse training program at Boston City Hospital and Franklin County Hospital in Massachusetts. She graduated in 1927. Susie became the first registered nurse of Crow descent.
Susie worked in variety of settings. She briefly worked at the Public Hospital in Greenfield, private nursing in Oklahoma, and as a home health nurse for the Chippewa tribe in Minnesota. She eventually returned to the Crow Reservation in Montana and married Thomas Yellowtail. During this time, 1930–1960, she continued to work at the Indian Health Service Hospital on the reservation and as a consultant for the Indian Health Service. In this role, Susie noted many issues with the Indian Health Service and lack of cultural competency/humility amongst medical professionals and staff who worked with indigenous peoples. Beyond that, she also noted the lack of access to medical care for indigenous people outside of the reservations, Native women being sterilized by the U.S. without consent , and poor living conditions; called for a full reform of the Indian Health Service. Susie alongside other Native nurses objected the dominant notion that traditional healing practices were inferior to Western medicine and pushed to integrate and promote indigenous practices into institutional medicine.
Yellowtail advocated for traditional healers to care for patients and also established the Community Health Representatives outreach program. She also served on the Division of Indian Health advisory committee to assist with the implementation of hygiene and sanitation projects. Yellowtail had a strategic and important role within her community and the U.S. government in assessing the needs and challenges of the health system. Yellowtails was recognized for her commitment to the advancement of health and awarded the President’s Award for Outstanding Nursing by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. From 1968–1972, she served on the Public Health Service Advisory Committee on Indian Health.
Susan is remembered by her peers for her devotion to improving health for Native and Indigenous communities while also maintaining their cultural values and practices. Throughout all of her advocacy and health education work she was an active participant and promoted Crow Culture. She was a dancer in the Crow Indian Ceremonial Dancers troupe, which toured throughout Europe from 1953– 1955. She was also a chaperone for the Miss Indian America pageant that was apart of the All-American Indian Days festival in Sheridan, Wyoming. In 1978, she established the American Indian Nurses Association (AINA), a predecessor to the current National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association. AINA focused on recruiting Native and Indigenous individuals into nursing and advocated and promoted for improvement in Native health, and calling out the injustices done on behalf of Native and Indigenous communities.
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail passed in 1981 and was posthumously inducted into the Montana Hall of Fame in 1987. She is recognized by many as the
Further Resources
Learn about the role of Mission Schools and Field Nurses in Native American history and the nursing profession.
Nursing Clio Beyond Florence Series: Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail and Histories of Native American Nursing
American Indian Health and Nursing by Margaret P. Moss
Support the National Alaska Native American Indian Nurses Association.
Sources
The information for the above biography was sourced from Montana Women’s History, NursingClio, and Minority Nurse.
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