Phyllis Mae Dailey was inducted into the US Navy Nurse Corps on this day in 1945. She was the first African American Navy nurse, following changes in Navy procedures that previously excluded Black women from joining the Nurse Corps.
With pressure from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and SPARS (the women’s component of the Coast Guard) the Navy ended exclusion based on race in January 1945.
Since the Navy Nurse Corps was one of the last units to accept African Americans, it had the smallest representation of black women. By the end of the war, the total active duty African American nurses dropped from 6,000 to just four women.
On this day in 1945, Lilia Ann Abron was born in Memphis Tennessee. An educator, teacher, consultant, and entrepreneur, she became the first African American Woman to be granted a PhD in Chemical engineering in 1972. In 1978, she founded PEER Consultants, a firm built on the belief that “humans and the physical environment are fully compatible and co-exist to mutually benefit one another.” She has worked to bring energy-efficient housing in South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, and Mali.
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