Barbara L. Nichols

Barbara L. Nichols (1939 to 2026) was an American nurse leader and the first Black president of the American Nurses Association. She grew up in Maine, trained at the Massachusetts Memorial School of Nursing, earned a bachelor's degree in nursing at Case Western Reserve University and worked at Boston Children's Hospital before serving as a head nurse in the United States Navy. After moving to Wisconsin she became president of the Wisconsin Nurses Association in 1970, took a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1979 became president of the American Nurses Association. She later served as secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing, the first Black woman to hold a state Cabinet-level role in Wisconsin, and from the late 1990s until 2011 she was chief executive of CGFNS International, which evaluates the credentials of foreign-educated nurses. She was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 2010 and received the Mary Mahoney Award from the American Nurses Association.