"Mary Eliza Mahoney"(April 16,1845 January 4,1926)

The first black African American graduate nurse.Originally from North Carolina,her parents were among the southern free blacks who moved north prior to the Civil War seeking a less racial

discriminatory environment.The eldest of three siblings,Mary attended the Philips Street School in Boston.At the age of twenty,she began working as a nurse.Supplementing her low income as an untrained,practical nurse,Mary took on janitorial duties at the new England Hospital for Women and children.Incorporated on March 18,1863,New England Hospital provided its patients state-of-the-art medical care by solely women physicians.It also assisted women in the practical study of medicine.On March 3,1878,she was accepted in New England Hospital's graduate nursing program.During her training,Mary participated in mandatory sixteen-hour-per-day ward duty, where she oversaw the well-being of six patients at a time.Days not requiring ward duty involved attending day-long lectures while simultaneously devoting times to her studies.Completing the rigorous sixteen-month program on August 1,1879,Mary was among the three graduates out of the forty students who began the program and the only African American awarded a diploma.Upon her graduation Mary became the first African American graduate nurse.She worked as a nurse for the next four decades.During her forty-year career she attracted a number of private clients who were among the most prominent Boston families.A deeply religious person,the diminutive five-foot tall.ninety pound Mary devoted herself to private nursing due to the rampant discrimination  against black women in public nursing at the time.In 1908 she co-founded National Association of Colored Nurses (NACGN).In retirement,she was concerned with women's equality and a strong supporter of women's suffrage (the movement to gain women the right to vote).In 1920 she among the first women in Boston to register to vote.Admitted to to New England Hospital on December 7,1925 she succumbed to breast cancer.Her grave is in Woodlawn Cemetery.In recognition of her outstanding example to nurses of all races, the NACGN established the Mary Mahoney Award in 1936.After the NACGN merged with the American Nurses Association in 1951,the award was continued.Today,the Mary Mahoney Award is bestowed biennially by the ANA in recognition of significant contributions in advancing equal opportunities in nursing for member's of minority groups.