Mabel Keaton Staupers

Mabel Keaton Staupers (February 27, 1890 – September 30, 1989) was a Barbadian born American pioneer of the nursing profession. Being faced with racial discrimination after graduating nursing school, Staupers became an advocate for racial equality in nursing in the United States. She is best known for her leadership in the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) and for helping end the racial restrictions against black nurses in the United States military during World War II.

Staupers also did work in public health, caring for African American tuberculosis patients in Harlem. In 1961, she published a book on the integration of African American nurses in the United States.

Early life and education Staupers was born February 27, 1890, in Barbados, West Indies. In 1903, at the age of thirteen, she emigrated to the United States, Harlem, New York, with her parents, Pauline and Thomas Doyle and received American citizenship in 1917. She began attending Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC, in 1914, where she graduated with honors in 1917. After graduation, like most graduate nurses, she worked as a private duty nurse. In the same year following her fellowship, 1922, she was asked to conduct a survey of the needs of the Harlem community related to health. She used her influence and management skills and became executive secretary of the Harlem Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association, a position she held for twelve years. She also teamed up with the executive secretary of the NNCWS, Elmira Wickenden, to make a statement advocating for the positive impact integration of Black nurses would have on the military.

In 1967, the Mayor of New York at the time, John Lindsay, granted Staupers a citation of appreciation for her work as a leader and for being a model citizen.

Publications In 1961, Staupers published a book titled, No Time for Prejudice: A Story of the Integration of Negroes in Nursing in the United States. This book illustrated the story of struggles and triumphs and the endeavors of Staupers and others to desegregate the profession of nursing in the United States.