Phyllis Mae Dailey

Phyllis Mae Dailey (March 12, 1919 – October 31, 1976) was an American nurse and officer who became the first African American woman either to serve in the United States Navy or to become a commissioned Navy officer. An alumna of the Lincoln School for Nurses and Teachers College, Columbia University, she was sworn into the Navy Nurse Corps as an ensign on March 8, 1945. She left the service on May 9, 1951, having earned the rank of lieutenant (junior grade). Dailey and four other nurses being sworn into service by Cmdr. Thomas Gaylord, March 8, 1945, in New York (photo from the National Archives)

Early life and education Dailey was born in New York City to Septimus and Mary Herron Dailey. Her parents had immigrated to America from the British West Indies in 1915. Her father was a carpenter. Three other African American women—Edith Mazie DeVoe, Helen Fredericka Turner, and Eula Lucille Stimley— also became ensigns in the Navy Nurse Corps during the war.

While Turner and Stimley left the service by mid-1946, Dailey stayed in the Navy after the war, rising to Lieutenant Junior Grade on April 11, 1948. She was discharged on May 9, 1951, and returned to civilian life.

Dailey was a member of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. She attributed the Nurse Corps' desegregation to the activism of Mabel Keaton Staupers, who fought for the inclusion of Black nurses in the armed forces. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt also lobbied for integration. Dailey said she "knew the barriers were going to be broken down eventually and felt the more applicants, the better the chances would be for each person." Her husband was a motorman who worked for the New York City Transit Authority for thirty-three years before retiring in 1976.