Black Nurses in Canada Who Paved the Way
Nursing History Symposium Celebrates Black History Month
Doctoral student Ismalia De Sousa played a significant role in creating the conditions that led to the nursing history seminar presented in February. A year before, Ismalia and another doctoral student, Eunice Bawafaa, wrote an article entitled: “Black History Month: A Recognition of Black Nurses’ Contributions to Healthcare in Canada and the World”, exposing the reality that this was the first time anyone at the school had formally observed Black History Month. Curious about the lack of activity in relation to Black nursing in BC, Ismalia brought together nurses who identified as Black in some way. Their first meeting was hosted by the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia, leading to the formation of the Coalition of African, Caribbean, and Black Nurses in BC. Ismalia then set out to create a directed studies course within her own doctoral program, in addition to her required coursework, to further investigate this invisibility question from a historical perspective, bringing in nursing professors Geertje Boschma and Lydia Wytenbroek. In a very real sense, this seminar is a direct result of one nurse’s willingness to ask the difficult questions and to persist in bringing people together to find answers, which is really a lesson for us all in how social change happens.
Excerpted from an introduction by Sally Thorne
In recognition of Black History month, the Consortium for Nursing History Inquiry at the UBC-V School of Nursing hosted an online nursing history panel on February 25, 2021, called: “Black (in) Visibility: Black Nurses in Canada who Paved the Way.” It recognizes the significant historical contributions of Black nurses to health care in British Columbia and Canada. The symposium was recorded and has been posted to UBC’s Open Library.
The recording captures introductory comments, followed by the opening keynote address of renowned historian Dr. Karen Flynn, Associate Professor in the Departments of Gender and Women’s Studies and African-American Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In her presentation, called “Locating Black Women’s Stories in Canadian Nursing Narratives,” Dr. Flynn highlights key arguments from her book Moving Beyond Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora. In her analysis, she puts into context the complex, racialized experiences these nurses’ lived through in their careers, as well as the systematic racism shaping the health care system of which they were part.
In a second presentation, Ismalia De Sousa, a doctoral student at UBC-V School of Nursing, presents initial findings of her project on the history of Black nurses and midwives in BC in the late 19th and early 20th century; she offers new perspectives on Black nurses’ visibility in BC communities, the context of their work and the way they negotiated their identities and caring work as women, midwives and nurses.
A concluding commentary was offered by Dr. Dzifa Dordunoo, an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Victoria, emphasizing the importance of history as a way to understand and make visible ongoing systemic racism in nursing and health care.
The virtual event was attended by more than 150 people from provinces and states across North America, as well as a few European countries.
