Understanding the Importance of the Tuskegee Army Nurses

---

Posted on November 2, 2018

Joy Washington and Libi Jacobs

---

An esteemed journalist and professor will discuss on the gender and racial discrimination of nurses who served alongside the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II on Thursday, Nov. 8, in Room 1013 of the Health Sciences Building at the University of South Alabama. The 6 p.m. lecture is titled “The Tuskegee Army Nurses Project.”

Pia Marie Winters Jordan, recently retired associate professor of multimedia journalism at the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University, will focus on military medical history and how nurses and other medical professionals played a vital role with the Tuskegee Airmen. 

“These nurses laid the foundation for future women, especially African-American women, to be included in the military service,” Jordan said. “If they had not done their job well, the desegregation of the military may have been delayed.”

Jordan earned her master’s in journalism-public affairs from American University in Washington, D.C. She has received several awards and honors for writing, teaching and advising as well as writing an award-winning screenplay. She has also served 20 years as a news anchor, reporter and producer for the Howard County Government Information Channel along with producing public affairs programs for WMAR-TV in Baltimore, Md.

She also continues to work on her documentary project on the Army Nurse Corps women who served with the Tuskegee Airmen at Tuskegee Army Air Field during World War II. Her mother, Louise Virginia Lomax Winters, was a first lieutenant and one of those nurses.

“My mother being one of the Tuskegee Airmen nurses inspired me to do this project. It’s her legacy,” Jordan said.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the department of history at 460-6210. The lecture is sponsored by the USA Gender Studies Program, the USA history department, the Mobile Medical Museum, and Dr. Byron Green and Dr. Elizabeth Manci.

---