Addie Hunton Biography

Addie Hunton

Addie Hunton was a black nurse during World

War I.

She worked in France, and she was sponsored

by the YMCA.

She was one of the four black nurses that were sponsored by

the YMCA. Those four nurses were

of the five or six that

did end up in the war.

Addie grew up with an education. She was born

on June 11, 1870 in Norfolk, Virginia. She got an

education at the Boston Latin School. She was the first

black woman to graduate, and she later became the

dean of State Normal and Agricultural College of

Alabama. She began her work with the YMCA when

she got married to William Hunton in 1893. She went

on to achieve many more things in her life that are

quite impressive, but the YMCA still denied her first

request to go to war.

When she got to war she was greeted with a huge

prejudice from the Americans. Luckily, the French did

not react in the same way. The nurses were treated

civilly and as people, despite the things the Americans

said. The black nurses did not help the white soldiers

and the white nurses did not help the black soldiers. The

only time that a black nurse would serve a white person

was when they absolutely had to. Such is the case when

the influenza epidemic spread. Addie and her other

nurses were forced to turn their reading and reception

room into a infirmary.

The reading and reception room was a thing that
the nurses had set up. It was where the soldiers could
talk and wait to be seen. The started out talking about
current things besides the war or army. Soon the started
talking about universities; but all of the troops were not educated. So they soon figured out a way to teach the
illiterate to write their names and maybe even attend a
french college after the war. The nurses even began a
book lending system. It was for the blacks that did not
have libraries in their southern cities.

Addie and all of the other black women, along with
the white, were very disappointed to learn that they
could not work on the front. The white women were
allowed to care for the combat troops while the black
nurses were confined to noncombatants people like
stevedores or engineers, or people that worked in labor battalions.

The black nurses were often told how much love
the black men had for the nurses by the things they said.
Addie Hunton and Kathryn Johnson reported an incident
that they were involved in with a black soldier, "One man
came to us saying, ‘Lady, do you want to get rich over in France?' We gave an affirmative reply and questioned
how. He said, ‘Just get a tent and go in their and charge
five cents a peep. These fellows would just be glad for even
a peep at you.'. . . Hundreds of incidents gave evidence of
the love of these men for their women. Sometimes they
shed tears at their first sight of colored women in France."

The YWCA even deserted the black women. The
YWCA had pledged to serve women in Europe. Especially
women of other organizations. And yet the seldom "gave
any attention to this little colored group, notwithstanding
the fact that they were women, and Americans, just like
the others," Addie and Kathryn reported.

Since Addie served over seas she was subjected to
dignities. From the original struggle to get there to the
boat ride back home. She was almost always alone. Their
might be many Y women in the camp but she always
worked alone, often working from nine in the morning to
nine at night. She along with all of the other black nurses were proud and independent. They were able to rise above
fatigue, isolation, pitiless inhumanity and describe their war experience as "the greatest opportunity for service that we
have ever known; service that was constructive, and
prolific with wonderful and satisfying results."

By Karel Schnebele