STORY

A Nursing Leader’s Living Legacy

One of Seattle’s few Black nurses in the 1940s, Rachel Suggs Pitts helped create a network of support for her colleagues and nursing students

By Luna Reyna

In 1956, Suggs Pitts completed a bachelor's in nursing at the UW. She spent much of her career with the Seattle & King County health department where she worked toward eliminating health disparities. Also, her interest in infectious diseases led her to join a multiyear virus infection surveillance project at the UW.

Rachel Suggs Pitts, one of Seattle’s few Black nurses in the 1940s, played a key role in UW virus research, worked as a public health nurse and provided decades of health service. But perhaps her most profound contribution was to future generations of Black nurses.

Pitts died in April, only a few months shy of her 100th birthday. She was the last remaining founder of the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization (MMPNO). The club for Black nurses started in the 1949 and today provides mentorship, financial aid and scholarships to students of African heritage pursuing careers in nursing. Through the organization and beyond, Pitts nurtured generations of young Black nurses. And they have gone on to advance public health both locally and nationally.

Rachel Suggs Pitts “is a model of what it means to be engaged in your profession up until the end of your life,” says Frankie Manning, a former UW faculty member and longtime member of the MMP-

COURESTY OF THE SUGGS PITTS FAMILY(2) NO. “She was always present because she wanted the young nurses dents. They were very skeptical about African American students to understand how important it was for them to go to school.” being able to achieve as highly as [the white] students.” While the

Rachel Suggs was born in Lakeland, Georgia, the fourth of five situation has improved, there are still disparities, both in the nurschildren. She grew up in a close-knit Black community, and many ing profession and in the health of many communities of color, of her earliest memories were set at the Baptist church where her which is where Lee has focused much of her career. Pitts was pasfamily worshiped and she attended school until the eighth grade. sionate about addressing health disparities, and she instilled this

When she was 5, her father died. By age 11, she was working same passion in generations of MMPNO nurses, says Lee. “She for a registered nurse—a white woman—who needed help car- said to us, ‘Remember our community and the disparity in health ing for her sick husband. Pitts also knew the midwife who deliv- care that still exists in the many communities of color.’” ered her community’s babies. According to several sources, the Pitts was someone who used her own achievements to uplift combination of these experiences and her faith made her want others, a focus at the core of the MMPNO mission. “She unto become a nurse. derstood that working with others in community for the goals

After high school, she worked almost two years to save for of equity and social justice was far more powerful than just one nursing school. She finished her clinical affiliation at Freedman’s person doing it,” Salmon says. Hospital in Washington, D.C., with experience in psychiatry Pitts retired from professional nursing in 1985 but continued and communicable diseases, but there she could only work with to provide health services to family, members of her church and Black patients. those who asked for help. To memorialize Pitts’ legacy, Salmon

During this time, Pitts started a family. Her husband was in created an endowed scholarship in her name. “I have huge admithe Navy, and she hoped to move to Seattle to await his return ration for her and was really happy to have the opportunity to do from the war. She found a job at Seattle’s Harborview Hospital something to celebrate her life,” Salmon says. “I know there’s a lot where she was placed in the communicable disease unit with of discussion now about diversity, equity and inclusion, but we the hospital’s other Black nurses. are at the beginning of the journey, we’re not at the end.”

In 1949, Pitts and 11 other nurses were invited to a meeting at fellow nurse Anne Foy Baker’s home. That night they formed the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Club, named for the first professionally trained Black nurse in the country. “Their early ef- Through example, mentorship forts involved bake sales, car washes and social events to try to raise money,” says Manning. The organization would pay for new and support, Rachel Suggs Pitts members to go to the beauty salon, be treated to dinner and be taken to church. Later, the money raised was directed to scholar- and a few of her fellow nurses ships. From the beginning, the group focused on creating a variety of support systems for its members. forged the way for health equity

One element of the support became the MMPNO mentorship program. “They were pretty diligent and very intentional and for future Black nurses in in terms of providing mentors to us,” says Shavonne Reynolds, MMPNO member, registered nurse and a current doctor of the Northwest. nursing practice student at UW. Her mentor is Manning. “She is just a wealth of information. I can call her just to vent and to get guidance on my professional decisions and school decisions,” she says. “Having someone who understands what it’s like to be a Black nurse, and specifically a Black nurse in Seattle, and to have that trust-building aspect of it in that shared life experience, has been tremendous.” Rachel Suggs knew she wanted to be a

In 1956, Pitts graduated with a bachelor’s degree nurse since childhood. from the UW School of Nursing and began work as After graduating high a public health nurse. She also brought her expertise school, left, she saved to a sudden infant death syndrome project, a sickle up for nearly two years cell screening service, a genetic counseling program, for nursing school. and a maternal and child health group. She eventually found “From a public health perspective, for her to have been a Black public health nurse at the time that she was, in a city that was pretty fundamentally segrea job at Harborview, one of the few hospitals hiring Black nurses at the time. There gated, was really amazing and it was powerful,” says she met the women Marla Salmon, a professor of nursing and global who would join her health at the UW. “How important it is just to go af- in founding the Mary ter a job in a very white city, then to get that job, and Mahoney Professional to be able to navigate it. Hers is a story of courage.” Nurses Organization.

Because of her expertise in infectious diseases, Pitts was invited to work on a UW Department of Epidemiology and International Health on a virus watch study. Unfortunately, she was not credited for her work. “It has not been uncommon for nurses to really be able to do a large part of the research legwork and have lots of influence on the data collection and how it’s done, but no credit is given,” Manning explains.

When Vivian Lee, ’55, met Pitts, Lee was struggling to get into the UW Nursing program. “She was the one who encouraged me,” Lee says. “I was interviewed quite a few times more than most stu-