Where Service Is Needed

For the Negro Nurse there’s been no easy way.
The bars have been high, the day a long day
When the hand that could tend the sick or the hurt
Must also combat Jim Crow’s dirt.

No caution, no gloves, no antiseptic, no mask
Could protect her from prejudice as she stuck to her task.
Only devotion, and the will to be what she set out to be,
Kept the Negro nurse on her road to today’s victory.

From America’s garden now
The ugly weeds are being weeded:
Only five states bar their doors to dark hands
That would serve where service is needed.

In the Army, the Navy, colored nurses attend.
Her long gallant struggle portends a good end.
“Negro nurse” is a phrase men no longer need say.
“American nurse” ineans all nurses today.

The bars have been high. There is no magic wand;
Only unity and faith have brought this new dawn
Where the rights of democracy to all are ceded:
Her skilled hands may serve where service is needed.