Nancy Leftenant-Colon was a nurse who broke the color barrier when she became the first Black woman to join the U.S. Army Nurse Corps following its desegregation in the 1940s.
- Died: January 8, 2025 (Who else died on January 8?)
- Details of death: Died in Amityville, New York at the age of 104.
- We invite you to share condolences for Nancy Leftenant-Colon in our Guest Book.
Nancy Leftenant-Colon’s legacy
The United States military was fully segregated when Leftenant-Colon signed up as a reservist in the Army Nurse Corps. She worked for years at segregated bases, in aid to segregated Black troops, before being allowed into the regular corps in 1948. Known as “Lefty,” Leftenant-Colon did not take her role as a pioneer lightly, knowing that however unfair it was, other Black enlistees who followed would be judged by her actions.
She had been told as much when she was dispatched to Fort Devens in Massachusetts in 1945, where, out of necessity, Black reserve nurses were being sent to care for the wounded. The head nurse at Lowell General Hospital informed Leftenant-Colon and her Black colleagues that they weren’t wanted there. The following year, stationed at an Army air base in Ohio – where she cared for a number of Tuskegee Airmen – Leftenant-Colon helped save a premature baby girl when her mother was refused treatment at a “whites only” hospital.
Once she was granted full-status membership in the Army Nurse Corps and military desegregation ended, she switched to the U.S. Air Force to become a flight nurse, serving the wounded during both the Korean and Vietnam wars. By the time Leftenant-Colon retired in 1965, she had risen to the rank of major and was chief nurse at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. She continued to care for others after leaving the military, working as a school nurse in Amityville, New York until her retirement in 1984.
For her pioneering efforts, Leftenant-Colon has honorary doctorates from Tuskegee University and the University of Mount Saint Vincent. Her brother, Samuel G. Leftenant, was a Tuskegee Airmen pilot killed during an escort mission in Austria. She helped maintain his legacy, and that of all the Tuskegee Airmen, when she became the first woman president of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. in 1989. In 2019, the Amityville Memorial High School named its media center in her honor.
On her early experience in the military
“I would be the only Black assigned there, with the comments like, ‘Oh, I hope you are not going to be stationed here.” — interview with CBS News, 2023
Tributes to Nancy Leftenant-Colon
Full obituary: The Washington Post
