Virginia Allen
The last living Black Angel
Virginia Allen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1931. She was inspired by her aunt, who worked as a nurse in New York City. With her parents’ support, Allen received her license of practical nursing from Central School for Practical Nurses. She initially worked as a surgical nurse, and in 1947, at the age of 16, she joined her aunt and began working as a nurse in Sea View Hospital. Sea View Hospital was the largest tuberculosis sanitarium globally and the site where a lung specialist led the development of isoniazid, a cure for tuberculosis. Black nurses who worked at Sea View Hospital were known as the Black Angels. They consisted of about 300 Black nurses who cared for quarantined tuberculosis patients from 1928–1960 and provided direct patient care when white nurses refused. The story of the Black Angel nurses is the subject of a book by Maria Smilios published in 2023. Virginia Allen is among the last surviving Black Angels.
After her work as a Black Angel, Virginia continued her work within the community as a leader and member in multiple organizations. She served as President of the North Shore Staten Island section of the National Council of Negro Women and was a charter member. Allen is also a member of notable organizations such as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Urban League, and Sandy Ground Historical Society. In this 2019 interview she explains her satisfaction that people are “paying attention to realize that doctors didn't just come and discover these (tuberculosis) drugs all by themselves, the nurses assisted them in the trials.”
Sources
We sourced the above information from the Staten Island Museum and New York 1.
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.
Help us paint the internet with nursing’s diverse origin stories. Follow this Medium publication, NursesYouShouldKnow on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, or @KnowNurses on Twitter to share and re-post our articles far and wide.
If you wish to be involved in the project, provide feedback, submit past or present day nurses to be featured, or to receive a monthly calendar in advance of which nurses will be featured each month, please sign up here.
