I found this information posted on the rnao.org site. I thought it was interesting and I had a "the- more-you-know..." moment when I read it. Read on...
Bernice Redmon, a Toronto native, had to go to the United States to attain a nursing degree and a graduate diploma in public health nursing because Canadian nursing schools refused to admit her. She was the first Black nurse allowed to practice in Canada when she obtained employment with the Nova Scotia Department of Health in Sydney in 1945 (Calliste, 1993, pp. 91-92; Braithwaite, 1977).
By the forties, with the shattering of employment barriers due to the war, African Canadians had begun a more concerted struggle for civil rights. Elements of the Black community, such as the Toronto Negro Veterans Association and Pearleen Oliver, founding member of the Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP), and with the support of mainstream organizations such as trade unions and church groups, put pressure on nursing schools to accept Black students. As a result, Ruth Bailey from Toronto and Gwen Barton from Halifax were accepted at the Children’s Hospital in Halifax.
In Windsor, the Hour-A Day Study Club wrote to the provincial minister of health and the University of Toronto to help get Black nurses admitted for training there. By the late 40s-early 50s, Black women gradually began to be accepted as nursing students and to be employed in hospitals in various centres across Canada. Marissa Scott, from Owen Sound, was initially refused acceptance at nursing schools across Ontario and there was a great deal of negative publicity about her case. Guelph Catholic Hospital eventually accepted her application and she became the first person to graduate and become a nurse in Ontario in 1950 (Calliste, 1993, pp. 92-93).
