Bjoring NUrsing HIstory Forum 10.29.24

"Dynamics of Prejudice: Antiracist Nursing Education, 1968-1978"
Cory Ellen Gatrall, PhD, MFA, RN

October 29, 2024
12 pm - 1 pm (ET) on Zoom

In 1968, the Race Relationship Planning Committee of the UCLA School of Nursing planned a three-year series of conferences and workshops, with the goal of “enabling nurses to become aware of their own prejudices and to realize how prejudices may interfere with their nursing practice.” Tensions arose quickly between organizers, who comprised both white academic administrators and Black Panther Party-affiliated faculty members; some white participants reported feeling attacked in “Racial Encounter” groups; and the last set of meetings was thoroughly reorganized and then preemptively cancelled. Two other major endeavors along similar lines met similar challenges, yet organizers persisted, convinced that diversification of the nursing workforce and deeper understanding of “cultural diversity” among nurses were key to improving the health of Black and brown communities. This talk will draw on planning documents and reports as well as organizational and oral histories to illustrate how white discomfort was leveraged to obstruct professional efforts to break down racialized barriers between nurses and patients, and how the lessons learned from these efforts differed from the objectives originally described.

Cory Ellen Gatrall (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar whose interests lie at the intersections of nursing, history, public health, anthropology, and science and technology studies. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master of fine arts in creative writing, she worked as a full-spectrum doula and abortion clinic escort organizer, then became a nurse to turn her passion into her career. She is a 2024-2025 Research Fellow at the Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine. 

We hope you can join us! 

Maura Singleton
Center Manager
Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry

E [email protected]
P 434.924.0083; 434.989.1550 (cell)

UVA School of Nursing
202 Jeanette Lancaster Way
P.O. Box 800782
Charlottesville, VA 22908-0782

www.nursing.virginia.edu/nursing-history/