If you are a regular reader of this journal, you may recall that I began the year with a commitment to writing editorials on hope. 2021 brought the world a continual barrage of depressing statistics about COVID-19, the mental health sequelae of COVID-19, and the devastating consequences of poverty and racism (not new issues, but certainly brought into greater prominence during the pandemic). Therefore, I made a commitment to finding sources of hope in 2022. In the United States, Black History Month has just concluded, suggesting that it would be timely to focus this month’s editorial on sources of hope regarding racism.
I begin with a story about the awakening of hope in Martin Luther King Jr. back in the 1940s (Kilgannon, Citation2021). He was a 15-year-old college student in Atlanta, Georgia, who had traveled north to Connecticut to work as a farmhand for the summer. This was his first experience outside the racist segregated American South. He was blown away by the ability to mingle freely with Whites at church, restaurants, and the movies. You can hear his joy and amazement in this letter to his father, “After we passed Washington [on the train], there was no discrimination at all…we go to any place we want to and sit anywhere we want to” (Kilgannon, Citation2021, p. 37).
For our readers outside the United States, let me explain that this life-changing experience for Dr. King took place before the lunch counter sit-ins and demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. As described by Gibson (Citation2015, p. 1,2), “Two societies existed in the South—separate, unequal…Restaurants served either White or Black patrons…Churches, schools, and funeral homes were either Black or White. Virtually all maids, janitors, and other service workers were Black, their employers and supervisors almost always White…Even national park areas in the South were segregated.” It is no wonder that Dr. King marveled in a letter to his mother that “we ate at one of the finest restaurants in Hartford” (Kilgannon, Citation2021, p. 37).
The emotion of hope was kindled in young Martin Luther King Jr. that Black and White people in the South could live together differently. After spending a second summer as a Connecticut farmhand, he felt called to take action himself. He applied to a theological seminary because of an “inescapable urge to serve society…a sense of responsibility which I could not escape” (Kilgannon, Citation2021, p. 37). Everyone knows the rest of the story: the courageous leadership of Dr. King in the struggle for racial equity, his assassination in Tennessee, the inspiration he continues to provide to millions of people.
Sadly, we are still trying to bring to fruition the dream that MLK articulated in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. During Black History month, American news and social media highlighted achievements of other notable Black leaders who sought to carry on Dr. King’s work. New conversations were held in churches, workplaces, and universities, about the next steps that must be taken to vigorously combat racism.
My own hope for the way forward in my profession of nursing was kindled by a remarkable colloquium held this week in the college of nursing where I teach. Black doctoral students bravely shared the continual egregious racist treatment and wearying microaggressions that they endure. They reported that racism is still pervasive in the clinical settings where they work. Yes, White people still presume that they must be on the janitorial or housekeeping staff! The students shared incidents such as White patients refusing their nursing care or calling them the “n” word. White students expressed empathy and spoke of advocacy for their Black colleagues during such hurtful incidents. Rich dialogue was facilitated by a Black faculty member who shared her own daily struggles and pain during 30 years of a nursing career. Nursing needs many more conversations such as this, as our profession grapples with the reality of racism within.
Here are some other reasons for hope. Emami and de Castro (Citation2021) urged us to move from “not racism” to antiracism, and described the establishment of a Center for Antiracism in Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing. The Center aims to serve as a catalyst for action by schools of nursing, professional societies, and other organizations involved in health care delivery to people of color. Peggy Chinn, well-known as editor of Advances in Nursing Science, is compiling a comprehensive list of editorials on race and racism in nursing journals, including one that I especially liked by Rita Pickler (2021) on confronting racism through nursing science. I encourage your submission of manuscripts about the antiracist work you are undertaking, wherever you are. In the words of Lin Yutang, “Hope is like a road in the country; there never was a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”
College of Nursing, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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References
- Emami, A., & de Castro, B. (2021). Confronting racism in nursing. Nursing Outlook, 69(5), 714–716. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2021.06.002
- Gibson, G. D. (2015). Southern witness. Skinner House Books.
- Kilgannon, C. (2021, November 14). Saving a Connecticut farm that stirred a dream. The New York Times, 37.
- Pickler, R. (2021). Confronting racism through nursing science. Nursing Research, 70(5), 323–324. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1097/NNR.0000000000000536