Medicine
Silence Is For Fools: How Hazel Johnson Became America’s First Black Womxn General
Serving Alabama Docks Energy for over 30 Years
In a previous article on Naomi Sims, I talked about how in 1948, activist and union organizer A. Phillip Randolph told President Harry Truman that Black Americans would not continue to serve in a segregated U.S. Army. Staring down the barrel, Truman signed Executive Order 9981, officially integrating all branches of the Armed Forces.
One year prior to this historic event, a young womxn named Hazel Johnson enrolled in the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing. Although no one knew it at the time, Johnson would go on to become one of the most decorated female officers in history, and eventually, change the face of nursing as we know it.
Hazel Johnson-Brown was the first nurse on staff at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command, the first Black female General in the U.S. Army, the first Black Chief of the U.S. Army Nursing Corps, the first Black womxn Brigadier General, author of the first Army Nurse Corps standard of practice document, and the director of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing.
Johnson served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, earning several military honors, including the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal, the…
