During WWII, Camp Florence opened on Hwy 79 north of the Gila River to house Italian and German prisoners of war (POW). To care for the POWs, the camp originally used white nurses. There was too much fraternization between white nurses and German POWs, so the military sent black nurses as replacements.
The POW Camps would become an ongoing assignment for the majority of black nurses. The remainder were stationed at segregated bases with black soldiers, who mostly performed maintenance and menial jobs during the war, and understood what it meant to wear a US military uniform and still be treated like a second class citizen.
As the war continued, there was an urgent need for more nurses to care for returning American soldiers wounded in battle. White nurses almost exclusively cared for American soldiers. This caused a low morale among black nurses. The efforts of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resulted in black nurse were no longer assigned exclusively to POW camps and were transferred to army hospitals to care for wounded American soldiers.
In celebration of Black History Month we are acknowledging the work and sacrifice that black nurses made as part of the WWII war effort.
