Born 123 years ago, an advocate and pioneer for nursing in the US.

 Mabel Keaton Staupers, born February 27, 1890 in Barbados, West Indies, graduated with honors from Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC. Facing discrimination, she worked as a private duty nurse and advocated for racial equality and inclusion in the nursing profession. She worked to establish the first sanitarium for black tuberculosis patients in Harlem, NY and then researched and reported on health needs in Harlem. As the leader of the Nat’l Assn. of Colored Graduate Nurses, she enlisted Eleanor Roosevelt’s support and organized a nation-wide letter-writing campaign for the inclusion of black nurses in the military during WWII, which was fully granted in January 1945. In 1948, she helped influence the Amer. Nursing Assn. to reverse their refusal to admit minority nurses