HISTORY OF FREEDMEN’S HOSPITAL SCHOOL OF NURSING ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association was organized in June 1897, three years after the Training School for Nurses was established. The first class of seventeen graduated in 1896. The founder of the Alumni Association was Mrs. Willie Rollins Frazier who served as its first President.

 The Alumni Association was legally incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia on May 7, 1906 as Freedmen’s Alumnae Association of Trained Nurses. Two amendments have been made to the original document. The first one on February 10, 1959, changed the name to Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association, Inc. A second one, on November 10, 1959, changed the name to Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association, Inc.
The purposes of Alumni Association are:

1. To stimulate mutual help and improvement in our profession and enhance good fellowship among graduates of this school;

2. To promote higher educational standards in Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing;

3. To cooperate with the District of Columbia Nurses’ Association and other professional organizations in working for the promotion of the professional and educational advancement of nursing.

The Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing Alumni in 1897 became one of the first alumni associations of three Black nursing alumni organizations to join the Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, which later became the American Nurses Association. In the early years, before 1916, graduates from Provident Hospital, Chicago, Freedmen’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., Lincoln Hospital, New York and from the few white schools which accepted Negroes did belong to the ANA if they were members of their school alumnae association. However, graduates from Freedmen’s Hospital School of Nursing were barred from membership in the Graduate Nurses Association of the District of Columbia solely because of their race.

In cooperation with the now dissolved National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and the Catholic Interracial Council of New York, the Alumni Association was responsible for the admission of the first Black nurse to the Department of Nursing, Catholic University of America in 1936.Since that time many Black nurses have graduated from this institution and have advanced in employment and professional status.
Another important program of the Alumni Association is the sponsorship and operation of the Willie Rollins Frazier Scholarship Fund which was established in 1949. Other scholarship program have been established and are administered by the Association. Contributions have been made annually to charitable and civic organizations deemed worthwhile by the membership such as Stoddard Baptist Home and National Council of Negro Women. The Association has obtained Life Membership in the N.A.A.C.P., the Urban League and the National Council of Negro Women.

At the 1973 Home Coming business meeting the President Henrietta S. Chisholm was given a mandate by the body to meet with representatives of each club and members-at-large for the purpose of making a decision as to which directions the organization would go in the future. The first official meeting of this committee was held in October 1974 in Flushing, New York. The decision was to have a national organization. The name of the group was formalized as the Executive Board of the F.H.N.A. Clubs, Inc. The Freedmen’s Hospital Nurses’ Alumni Clubs, Inc., was duly incorporated in the District of Columbia in April, 1975. The original Constitution and By-Laws for this new body were adopted at the Home Coming on June 11, 1976.

Reference: The Souvenir Brochure Committee published June, 1973 by the Committee chaired by Elizabeth V. Stewart, MS, RN, FHSN Class of 1934.
Revised in October, 2015 by Julia Varner McFarlane, M.Ed., RN, FHSN Class of 1969, and Executive Board President.