Oklahoma City Times
Segregated Negro Nurse Plan Hit
By Jeannette Hopkins
(Times Staff Writer)
TULSA, Oct. 20—Oklahoma should
provide nursing training for Negro
girls in "already established. . accredited schools," the president of
the Oklahoma State League for
Nursing Education maintained Friday.
"And if they're going to be admitted, they shouldn't be segregated. We should conform to the
supreme court ruling," Miss Martha
E. Keaton declared in an interview
at the annual convention of the
Oklahoma State Nurses association
in the Mayo hotel here.
The school of nursing at the University of Oklahoma reports that 11
white girls and eight Negro girls
have filed applications for the February class. Three Negro girls filed
for entrance to the July class after
. the ranks had already been filled.
According to Rose 3 Dunjee, publisher of the Black Dispatch and
impetus behind the National Association for Advancement of Colored
People's campaign to get Negro girls
into the school, a suit-will be filed
if none, is admitted in the next
class. But Dunjee expects that Negro girls will be admitted.
Miss Keaton, consultant for -the
United States Indian service, said
the league surveyed the problem last
year and disapproved a suggested
plan to organize a. separate Negro
nursing school at Langstcn university and Edwards hospital.
"We agreed there shouM b>
vision for their educatior
there were no good facilil
segregated school, that the ^irls
should be educated out of the state
until the schools of nursing in Oklahoma were opened for Negro students."
A survey of nursing needs in the
state completed this week by Miss
Edyth G. Barnes of the U. S. public
Drtion
itered
white
hered
health service reported "There
would be enough existing facilities
in the state" to provide training for
Negro girls if the same proportion
of highschool graduates entere
nursing as applied in the whl
group.
Negro nurses who have gathei
at the convention on an equal membership non-segregated basis with
white nurses said they were waiting
hopefully for a decision from the
board of regents on the issue.
Mrs. Opaline D. Wadkins, supervisor of Negro nurses at University
hospital, the only white hospital in
Oklahoma City to aedfept them on
the staff, pointed out there is a
great need in Oklahoma for,trained
Negro nurses.
In the last five years, about 20
mrses have left University
i and Oklahoma to seek bet-
ter-payiiig jobs in other states, she
said, ana although there are 17 budgeted positions, there are only 12
nurses on the pay roll, a separate
Negro hursing school could not be
set up at the university in her opinion because clinical facilities are inadequate for teaching.
