Honoring The Healers

These words reflect the pain and some­times humiliation that her profession experienced during segregation in Ba­ton Rouge. Brought to­gether in 2010 for a reun­ion by McKinley graduate, Joan Forbes, a group of these nurses describe working on the “Black Ward” a single section of a single floor of a local hospital, where all blacks were lumped together, regardless of medical need. While they were not all McKin­ley graduates, these professionals all endured unprofessional treatment for many years as they toiled in local hos­pitals. They spoke of only two bathrooms, one for men and one for women, with a single tub, sink and toilet in each; whites refusing to be treated by them; a segregated cafeteria where they were unwelcome. In 2010, when her mother turned 83, Forbes hosted a large party, inviting all the nurses she could find who had once worked at the General’s fourth-floor “black wing,” then known as 4-South. Many hadn’t seen each other in years. Her mother died in 2011, but Forbes kept pursuing her cause to persuade the General to honor the women who cared for pa­tients-and each other-through the hard times of the Jim Crow era and beyond. These women were later hon­ored not only by the Baton Rouge General Hospital but by the women of Baton Rouge at The Celebration of Wom­en program on March 17th of this year.