Barbara Bates Center Spring Spotlight: The Black Angels

In the pre-antibiotic days when tuber­culosis stirred people’s darkest fears, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting en masse. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the stric­tures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves in the remote borough of Staten Island, confronting racism and consigned to an understaffed sanatorium, dubbed “the pest house.”

Smilios’ book follows the young women known by their patients as the “Black Angels.” Despite their major role in desegregating the New York City hospital system — and their vital work in helping to find the cure for tuberculo­sis at Sea View — these nurses were erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these women and puts them at the center of this story, celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival.

Virginia Allen, a nurse, labor relations advocate and social activist, is one of the last living members of the group that became known as the “Black Angels”. The Black Angels were recruited from all over the country to avert a public health crisis when white nurses quit rather than treat tuberculosis patients. Allen received the AAN’s Lifetime Legacy Award in 2024.