✊🏾'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' – Black History Series Before Brown v. Board, There Was Frances Hamilton: The 1929 Battle to Train Black Nurses in San Diego

How a little-known NAACP campaign and two determined teenagers challenged segregation at San Diego County Hospital—reshaping the narrative of America’s civil rights victories.

In the American civil rights narrative, history often spotlights landmark rulings and sweeping federal reforms—Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet long before those victories, smaller, fiercely contested battles were waged in cities across the nation. Some were quiet. Some were bitter. Many have been nearly forgotten.

One such struggle unfolded in San Diego in the late 1920s, when two 19-year-old Black women challenged the whites-only admissions policy at the San Diego County Hospital’s nursing program. Their campaign—led by local NAACP organizers and supported by white progressive allies—culminated in 1929 with Frances Louise Hamilton becoming the first Black graduate of the program.

The triumph was modest in scale. It was also monumental.

A City Resistant to Change

San Diego in 1927 was home to roughly 146,000 residents. Only about 2,600 were Black—less than 2% of the population. Despite a small but growing Black professional class that included physicians and business leaders, the city had never produced a formally trained, credentialed Black nurse.

In 1926, the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People formally requested that the San Diego County Board of Supervisors end its whites-only training policy at the county hospital. For a year, the Board stalled.

Then two recent graduates of San Diego High School, Frances Louise Hamilton and Hallie Annie Dee Williams, decided they would apply anyway.

They had excelled academically and socially in an overwhelmingly white school. They believed they could compete with the 70 or so white trainees already enrolled at the hospital. What they may not have anticipated was the backlash.

Organized Resistance

Opposition was swift and venomous.

A headline in the San Diego Evening Tribune blared: “WHITE STUDENT NURSE RESENTS NEGRESSES.” White cadet nurses threatened a walkout. They demanded segregated dormitories, dining halls, and entertainment facilities. They argued Black women should “go anyplace but here, please.”

Hospital Superintendent Dr. George Roy Stevenson publicly questioned whether Black students would benefit from the training at all, citing alleged limited employment prospects.

Behind the scenes, white trainees circulated protest letters filled with racial stereotypes and assertions of intellectual inferiority.

Yet the NAACP refused to retreat.

A Campaign of Persistence

Local NAACP branch president Dennis Volyer Allen returned repeatedly to the Board of Supervisors, reminding them that Black taxpayers were entitled to public education. To deny access, he argued, amounted to taxation without representation.

Black community organizer Martha T. Dodge and newspaper editor A.L. Brown amplified the call for justice. Retired Judge Alfred Haines asserted there was no legal authority to maintain segregation in the nursing program.

Crucially, white progressive allies stepped forward. Members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom gathered at the home of activist Helen Marston and signed a petition urging desegregation. They framed the issue not just as equality—but as public health necessity.

More trained Black nurses would mean better care in Black communities.

Victory—With Conditions

On August 28, 1928, the Board of Supervisors ruled that Hamilton and Williams were qualified for admission. It was a breakthrough. The local NAACP celebrated. National Black newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Courier, reported the victory.

But the fight was not over.

White students resisted sharing dormitories. A compromise was reached: Hamilton and Williams would live at home, and the hospital would cover their transportation costs. It was an imperfect solution born of racial hostility—but it allowed progress to continue.

On May 14, 1929, Frances Louise Hamilton graduated with the 29th class of the San Diego County Hospital School of Nursing, becoming the first Black graduate in the institution’s history.

Williams left the program before completion. Both women eventually moved to Los Angeles. Their names faded from public memory.

The Power of “Small” Victories

The campaign did not dismantle segregation nationwide. It did not produce a Supreme Court ruling. It did not ignite mass marches.

But it cracked a barrier.

In reframing civil rights history, victories like Hamilton’s deserve equal weight. They reveal that racial justice in America was not only achieved through headline-grabbing federal legislation but through relentless local organizing, community pressure, and the courage of young individuals willing to challenge entrenched norms.

Before Brown. Before Selma. Before the Civil Rights Act.

There was San Diego.

There was the NAACP.

And there was Frances Louise Hamilton.

Sometimes equality advances one hospital ward at a time.

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-- By Michael R. Thomas

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