Today we talk with Dr. Hafeeza Anchrum, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society (PRSS). Curious about the history of nurses that shared her experiences, she recently completed a doctoral degree capturing the oral history of black nurses and their struggle for equality during the civil rights movement.

Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, as a child of a mother of the civil rights movement, Dr. Anchrum understood the need to preserve these stories due to a scarcity of historical scholarship focused on black nurses.

We talk with Dr. Anchrum about her early experiences in the profession, the inequities baked into the education system, and who gets to tell the history of nursing, what is being taught, and whose work is celebrated.