Viewing page 53 of 121

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

PHILADELPHIA RECORD, SUNDAY, MAY 9, 1943

Progress of Negro in Army
Told by First Chief Nurse

Lt. Raney Says They Get Out of Armed Service Just What They Put In As Individuals.

By ORRIN C. EVANS

First Lieutenant Della Raney knows progress when he sees it.

"And I've seen plenty of it in Uncle Sam's armed forces," she said yesterday, "so far as the Negro is concerned.

Lieutenant Raney, who admits she's just "slightly this side of 30," should know. She is Chief Nurse at the U.S. Army Hospital at the Tuskegee (Ala.) Air Base, the first Negro woman to have that distinction in the Nurses' Corps.

In Service Two Years.

Since she entered the service two years ago she has watched the treatment and advancement of Negroes toughening up for foreign battlefields.

"I want to go on record with the statement that everything isn't all it should be, but things are much better than certain agitators would have you believe."

She said during World War I only 18 Negro nurses were inducted into service-and that was after the Armistice.

"Today there are 20 Negro nurses stationed with me at Tuskegee, and three recently were sent overseas," she said. "There are other Negro nurses sarving [[serving]] at various camps throughout the country, two of whom have the rank of chief nurse."

Up to nIdividual [[Individual]].

She feels that in spite of racial prejudice in certain sections of the country "the Negro gets out of Army life what he puts into it."

A native of Suffolk, Va., Lieutenant Raney is a graduate of Virginia State University. She took her training at Lincoln Hospital, Durham, N.C., from which she enlisted in the Army.

[[image]]
LT. DELLA RANEY
First Negro woman commissioned in the Army Air Corps.

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-26 10:01:43 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-26 11:31:09 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-26 13:29:49 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-27 12:29:06