Celebrating Black History Month: Margaret Bailey, first African American Nurse Corps colonel

 

Margaret Bailey, born December 25, 1915 in Selma, Alabama, graduated from nursing school in 1938 and worked at Mercy Hospital in st. Petersburg, Florida, the only primary care facility for the black community. A year later, resigned her position and went to work at Seaview Hospital on Staten Island, New York, which specialized in tuberculosis treatment and was also non-segregated.

She joined the US Army Nurse Corps in June 1944 and was assigned to the "all-Negro unit" in the corps. She completed basic training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona and was commissioned second lieutenant. She was assigned to Florence, Arizona to care for German POWs.

After WWII, Bailey served in domestic and international facilities, such as France, Germany, and Japan.  she faced racism, but she advanced through the ranks.  She was promoted to captain in 1950 after completing a six-month psychiatric nursing course at Brooke Army Medical Center.

In July 1964, she was promoted to lieutenant colonel, becoming the first black nurse to achieve the rank. She was transferred to the 130th General Hospital in Chinon, France.  In 1966, she became the first chief nurse of the unit and the first black nurse to lead a non-segregated unit.

Bailey received the Army Commendation Medal in February 1969 and in January 1970, she became the first African American person to achieve the rank of colonel, the highest military rank possible within the United States Army Nurse Corps.

She retired from the Army in 1971 or 1972, and worked as a Consultant to the Surgeon General with a special responsibility to promote increased participation of minorities in the Army Nurse Corps. Throughout her lifetime, she was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the American Campaign Medal, National Defense Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, and the Legion of Merit, the second hightest non-combat military award.

Bailey passed away in August 2014 in Washington DC, at the age of 98. 

Speech by Col. Margaret Bailey

Celebrating Black History Month: Ruth Lucas, first African American woman to become a colonel in the US Air Force

 

Ruth Lucas, born November 28, 1920 in Stamford, Connecticut, became the first African American woman in the US Air Force to be promoted to colonel.  She graduated from the Tuskegee University in Alabama in 1942.

Shorly after, she enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) and was one of the first black women to attend the now Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. She transfered from the Army to the Air Force in 1947.

She was stationed at an Air Force base in Tokyo in the 1950s where she taught English to Japanese students. She received a master's degree in educational psychology from Columbia University in 1957.  

When Lucas was promoted to colonel in 1968, she was a general education and counseling services assistant in the office of the deputy assistant secretary of defense for education at the Pentagon. She retired from the Air Force in 1970. 

She passed away in March 2013 in Washington, DC.

A Tribute to Ruth Lucas

Celebrating Black History Month: Charles Young, first African American colonel in US Army

Charles Young, born March 12, 1864 in Mays Lick, Kentucky, was the first African American to achieve the rank of colonel in the US Army. His parents were slaves, but his father escaped slavery by fleeing to Ohio and enlisted in the 5th United States Colored Heavy Artillery Regiment near the end of the Civil War.

Charles entered West Point Academy in 1884 and roomed with the only other black cadet, John Hanks Alexander.  As usual, Young experienced brutal hazing incidents and racism throughout his term.  However, he perservered and graduated in 1889, with the rank of second lieutenant,  becoming the third black man to do so.  Alexander had graduated in 1887. Young served mostly with the Buffalo Soldiers,  first assigned to the Tenth US Cavalry Regiment and then the Ninth US Cavalry Regiment in Nebraska.  

During the Spanish-American War, he was temporarily promoted to major of volunteers in May 1898. He was mustered out of the volunteers in January 1899 and reverted to his rank of first lieutenant.  He was promoted to Captain in the 9th Cavalry Regiment in February 1901. 

By the time of the 1916 Punitive Expedition by the US into Mexico, Young had been promoted to major.  Because of his exceptional leadership of the 10th Cavalry in Mexico he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in July 1916.  In 1917, he was promoted to colonel, the first African American to achieve this rank.

Just before the beginning fo WWI, a white lieutenant did not want to be outranked by a black man and complained to the Secretary of War Newton Baker, who refused to transfer him.  President Woodrow Wilson overturned Baker's decision and transferred the lieutenant. Baker realized that if Young was allowed to fight in Europe, he would be eligible for promotion to brigadier general. That meant he would be commanding white officers, so the War Department placed him on the inactive list due to "high blood pressure".  

In November 1918, Young traveled from Wilberforce, Ohio to Washington DC on horseback to prove his physical fitness and was reinstated to active duty as a colonel.  In 1919, he was assigned as military attache to Liberia.

During a reconnaissance mission in Nigeria in late 1921, Young was taken ill and died of a kidney infection in January 8, 1922.  He was the fourth soldier to receive a funeral in Arlington Memorial Ampitheater.

In February 2020, Young was posthumously promoted to honorary brigadier general in Kentucky by then Governor Andy Beshear. 

Brief history of Col. Charles Young