Mary Barksdale | |
---|---|
Born |
Georgia, U.S. | November 24, 1920
Died | October 9, 1992 | (aged 71)
Alma mater | Spelman College |
Mary Zoner Hurston Barksdale Lawes (November 24, 1920 - October 9, 1992 [1] ) was a prominent African-American nurse and businesswoman. She was the owner and administrator, for twenty-seven years, of the Hurstdale Rest Home, the only black-owned rest home in western Massachusetts.
Lawes was born in 1920 to John Paul Hurston and Lula Mae Taylor, in Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Spelman College [2] and migrated to the Springfield area in the 1940s.
In 1952, she graduated from a Springfield area nursing school and became a licensed L.P.N. She was one of the first Black nurses to work for the Holyoke visiting nurses program and later Springfield Hospital.
Barksdale was a past President of the Jack and Jill Club of America, [3] a national black mothers' organization. She was on the Board of Directors for both the Action for Equality and Achiever's Opportunity Corporations. She also received a certificate of excellence from Harvard University [4] for her work in gerontology. She, along with her late husband, Abraham Barksdale, was instrumental in the founding of the D. Edward Wells Federal Credit Union. [5]
Her husband's Abraham Barksdale's crowning achievement was the desegregation of Springfield Public Schools. In Barksdale v. Springfield School Committee, a de facto segregation lawsuit, Abraham Barksdale and Mary Barksdale challenged the concept of racial isolation because the school a child attended was based on the neighborhood in which you lived. [6] Barksdale won and Springfield Public Schools were desegregated in 1965.
Mary Barksdale | |
---|---|
Born |
Georgia, U.S. | November 24, 1920
Died | October 9, 1992 | (aged 71)
Alma mater | Spelman College |
Mary Zoner Hurston Barksdale Lawes (November 24, 1920 - October 9, 1992 [1] ) was a prominent African-American nurse and businesswoman. She was the owner and administrator, for twenty-seven years, of the Hurstdale Rest Home, the only black-owned rest home in western Massachusetts.
Lawes was born in 1920 to John Paul Hurston and Lula Mae Taylor, in Atlanta, Georgia. She attended Spelman College [2] and migrated to the Springfield area in the 1940s.
In 1952, she graduated from a Springfield area nursing school and became a licensed L.P.N. She was one of the first Black nurses to work for the Holyoke visiting nurses program and later Springfield Hospital.
Barksdale was a past President of the Jack and Jill Club of America, [3] a national black mothers' organization. She was on the Board of Directors for both the Action for Equality and Achiever's Opportunity Corporations. She also received a certificate of excellence from Harvard University [4] for her work in gerontology. She, along with her late husband, Abraham Barksdale, was instrumental in the founding of the D. Edward Wells Federal Credit Union. [5]
Her husband's Abraham Barksdale's crowning achievement was the desegregation of Springfield Public Schools. In Barksdale v. Springfield School Committee, a de facto segregation lawsuit, Abraham Barksdale and Mary Barksdale challenged the concept of racial isolation because the school a child attended was based on the neighborhood in which you lived. [6] Barksdale won and Springfield Public Schools were desegregated in 1965.