Cameron Art Museum to screen “The Black Angels: A Nurse’s Story” for Women’s History Month

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - The Cameron Art Museum is screening a documentary “The Black Angels: A Nurse’s Story” on Sunday, March 19, about a group of women’s groundbreaking contributions to medicine in honor of Women’s History Month.

The documentary features the story of 300 African American nurses known as The Black Angels, who were based out of the Seaview Hospital in Staten Island, New York. The hospital was the largest sanitorium for tuberculosis in the 1940′s and it housed over 2,000 patients, where it would become the birthplace of clinical trials that would lead to the cure for tuberculosis.

“We have to remember that in the 1940s we also had segregation,” Denetra Hampton, a film producer with the documentary, said. “So when we talk about the idea that Cameron Art Museum having a Resilience Weekend, this story fits in perfectly because you have these African American nurses who came from the south to care for these patients when white nurses walked off the job.”

The Black Angels traveled from many states to care for patients with tuberculosis when there was no cure and white nurses refused to treat them.

The documentary screening starts at 2 p.m., and a Q&A session will proceed at 2:30 p.m.

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