Martha Minerva Franklin

Martha Minerva Franklin (1870 to 1968) was an African-American nurse and one of the first people to campaign for racial equality in nursing. Born in New Milford, Connecticut, she graduated from the Women's Hospital Training School for Nurses in Philadelphia in December 1897 as the only African American in her class, then worked as a private duty nurse in Meriden and New Haven. In 1906 she surveyed the status of black nurses, mailing more than 500 letters, and found that many State Nurses Associations refused black members and so closed the American Nurses Association to them in practice. She then wrote 1,500 letters proposing a national meeting, and in New York the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was formed with her as its first president. She later worked as a public school nurse in New York and studied public health nursing at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was inducted into the ANA Nursing Hall of Fame in 1976 and the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 2009.