Patricia (Pattie) Hawkins Carter (May 1875-1950): Director of Nursing at Lincoln Hospital from 1911-1935, assistant superintendent of Lincoln Hospital, 1935-1948. Under her leadership, the hospital was transformed into a modern medical institution with a medical records department and the implementation of uniform standards for training and patient services.

The opening of Lincoln Hospital is celebrated on May18,1901. Lincoln was the third hospital for the Black community in North Carolina. It was located in Durham, NC, and, despite people's ability to pay, it was open to all patients.
The Lincoln School of Nursing opened the following year with Julia Latta, a St. Agnes School of Nursing graduate in Raleigh, as its first director. Patty Carter became the director of nursing in 1911. She was born in 1875 and was the daughter of Hawkins W. Carter, who served Warren County as a representative and state senator during the Reconstruction era.

She obtained her education from Shaw University, St. Agnes Hospital, and Lincoln Hospital in New York City. During her 37 years at Lincoln, she served in nearly every leadership capacity. She was known to prepare meals in the kitchen, dispense medications from the pharmacy, mop floors, and lend a hand where needed. In 1927, William K. Boyd, in The Scalpel, attributed the institution's success to her dedication and the countless hours of work she devoted to it. Carter instilled into the students the tenets of "Ethics and Hospital Etiquette," which read,

"Nurses must at all times observe the ethics of nursing, cultivate a professional spirit which includes cheerful, willing obedience to authority, as well as the trying of duties of the sick room." Her mantra was that dignity, decorum, and quiet of manner must be observed. Also, unnecessary waste of time must be avoided. All communications with visiting doctors, interns, patients, orderlies, or any other person shall be strictly professional."

Carter was elected President of the Durham Chapter in 1926 and served in that capacity again in 1946. She gave a talk about the organization's history at the 1937 convention. She died in 1950 in Durham at age 75.

Just as nursing schools were segregated by race at the turn of the century, so was the North Carolina Nurses Association when it was founded in 1902. By the early 20th century, North Carolina had three strong schools of nursing for Blacks: St. Agnes in Raleigh, Lincoln in Durham, and Good Samaritan in Charlotte.

African American women recognized the need for a professional association for registered nurses. In August 1920, Carrie Early Broadfoot and four other African American nurses from North Carolina attended a meeting of the National Association of Negro Graduate Nurses in Washington, DC. They began discussing the formation of a state association. In January 1923, the North Carolina Association of Negro Registered Nurses was founded in Winston-Salem.

The organization grew despite lacking funds, staff, or permanent office space. The organization provided African American nurses opportunities for professional growth, but educational and employment discrimination deeply concerned association members. By 1937, Black nurses seeking employment in community health could only find jobs in Asheville, Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Weldon, Wilmington, and Winston-Salem. By the 1940s, Jim Crow racial injustice was being questioned by more and more people. Organized nursing was at the forefront of breaking down racial barriers in North Carolina. During this decade, leaders of the North Carolina Nurses Association and the North Carolina Colored Graduate Nurses Association created a plan to merge.

In 1949, NCCGNA voted itself out of existence, and NCNA voted to open its membership to all registered nurses in North Carolina. It took over a decade after the merger of the professional organizations for white nursing schools to accept Black women.

The following is the account of one registered nurse's journey in overcoming racial barriers to achieve her dream. St Agnes Hospital Founded by Sarah Hunter, wife of Saint Augustine's fourth principal, the original 1895 building housed the only nurse teaching hospital for African Americans between Atlanta and Washington, D.C., but was severely damaged by fire; students quarried stone and started the current building in 1905 under the direction of the Rev. Henry Beard Delany; it became a 75-bed center that opened in 1908; after a $5 million renovation it will next become an administrative center for the college.

Credits: Lincoln Health Center -Durham, NC; Durham History Museum; AA Registry: “Voices: Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing, Durham, North Carolina, 1903…,” , a book by Evelyn Pearl Booker Wicker, published June 1, 2013.