Black Sis-tory: Salaria Kee O'Reilly: Activist Nurse
Salaria Kee (Kea) O’Reilly was ahead of her time: In the mid-1930s, she fought against double threats—racism and fascism--in her quest to acquire a nursing education, and later, to oppose fascism in Ethiopia and Spain.
Born in Milledgeville, GA, on July 13, 1913, Salaria was six months old when her father, George Kee, died from a stab wound at the hands of a patient in the state mental hospital where he worked. Consequently, her mother, Vertie Kee, relocated with her four children to Akron, OH to live with family.
Two years later, her mother returned to Georgia to re-marry, leaving Salaria and her brothers in the care of relatives. Nonetheless, bolstered by the financial and emotional support of her older brothers, Salaria grew into a bright, independent teenager.
In high school, Salaria got her first lesson in combatting injustice. Eager to play on her school’s basketball team, school administrators denied her the opportunity because “no Negro had ever played on the team.” Undeterred, with her brothers’ help, she challenged the school board, and eventually, they allowed her to play sports.
During summers in Ohio, Salaria worked as an office assistant for prominent Black surgeon, Dr. Bedford Neal Riddle, who encouraged her to pursue a career in nursing. She did so but faced resistance when she applied to nursing schools.
In Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950, historian Darlene Clark Hine, recounts Salaria’s response to rejection by white nursing schools: “I received letters from all schools of nursing in Akron, Cleveland, Detroit …They must have had a conference, with the agenda Salaria Kee, Colored … because each letter read, ‘We have no provisions for training colored nurses.’”
Rebel Nurse
Undeterred, Salaria moved to New York City to attend the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing, one of two training schools in the city for Black nurses. As a student nurse, Hine reported, “(Kee) found most distressing the segregated seating arrangements in the nurses’ dining room (because) ‘white teachers and white nurses had special tables … Negro teachers and Negro nurses … had separate facilities.’”
Salaria and a few classmates protested the segregated seating by sitting at a table reserved for whites. When staff refused to serve them, they ripped off the tablecloth, causing an upset in the dining room. They formed a committee, chaired by Salaria, and collected signatures from 90 percent of the student body demanding an end to segregated seating and the hiring of a Black dietitian.
In response to students’ demands, Mayor Jimmy Walker set up a committee to investigate. Within hours of a committee visit to the hospital, Salaria said, “the entire system of ‘reserved tables for whites’ was abolished in one day!”
After graduation in 1934, Salaria worked at Seaview Hospital and Harlem Hospital, the only two New York City hospitals that hired Black doctors and nurses. While working at Harlem Hospital, she spoke out against the overcrowding, inadequate staff, and poor-quality medical care. During a public investigation, Salaria denounced conditions in the maternity ward: “One nurse had charge of … a nursery of 50 babies. Fifty babies to be fed and cleaned three times each night.”
Hine noted, “Not surprisingly, Kee’s tenure at tenure at Harlem was destined to be brief. Admonished more than once to ‘mind her own business,’ the embattled Kee remained at Harlem Hospital for two years.”
A New Worldview
Living in Harlem, Salaria associated with left-wing activists and progressives, who broadened her understanding of international struggles, and how they mirrored the discrimination, oppression, and impoverishment endured by Blacks living in Harlem during the Depression. In 1935, she joined the Harlem division of the Communist Party, which held rallies against discrimination in education, organized sit-ins at welfare offices, and promoted tenants’ rights.
On October 3, 1935, fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia (then Abyssinia) to expand Italian colonization in East Africa (which included the colonies of Libya, Somalia, and Eritrea) and to harness the country’s mineral resources. Outnumbered, the Ethiopian military (and civilian recruits) had outdated weaponry and faced a highly trained Italian army with superior weapons, (including chemical weapons, such as sulfur mustard). The League of Nations refused to mediate the conflict, leaving Ethiopia at the mercy of Mussolini.
In support of Ethiopia, Harlem activists and anti-fascist groups held a march to “Stop Wanton Murders by Fascists in Ethiopia, which drew 25,000 Black people and anti-fascist Italian Americans. Salaria joined with progressive nurses, who raised money and sent two tons of medical supplies to the embattled country.
Bound for Spain
“I’m not just going to sit down and let this happen. I’m going to help even if it means my life …This is my world, too … I’m a nurse. Look at all the people (in Spain) that have been hurt … soldiers, young children, women, and men. I was doing crisis duty.” (The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War--1984 documentary)
During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), fought between pro-democracy Republicans and pro-Nazi, fascist-leaning Nationalists, Salaria felt duty-bound to volunteer as a nurse. Consequently, she joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an all-volunteer group of 2800 Americans, who would serve as soldiers, technicians, engineers, and medical personnel in Spain.
On March 27, 1937, Salaria sailed on the Paris to Spain, the only Black person among twelve doctors and nurses, and was among 100 Blacks eager to support Spanish workers, Socialists, and peasants in their fight against Republican forces.
Stationed near the American No. 1 Hospital (ABH) in Villa Paz, Salaria was appalled by the carnage, “Soldiers from all over the world who came to fight for democracy lay maimed, their faces disfigured, and bodies broken, pieces of them buried in trenches or battlefields.”
Yet amid the destruction, fate would surprise Salaria with romance. She met her future husband, John Jospeh O’Reilly, an Irish ambulance worker, who ferried wounded soldiers from the front lines to various hospitals, including the ABH. O’Reilly became infatuated with Salaria and began to write poems about her; although initially disinterested in his advances, his persistence won her over. Despite recognizing that in the states they would face attacks and intimidation because of their interracial marriage, they wed at Villa Paz on October 2, 1937.
One year later, Salaria had to return home due to a severe injury sustained during a bombing in Barcelona. John remained in Spain, and couple did not reunite until 1940.
When she returned home, Salaria toured the country rallying support and raising money for the Republican cause, and she also taught classes for practical nurses and nurses’ aides. During the final months of WWII, she served in the Army Nurse Corps.
Eventually, John and Salaria settled in Akron, OH, where her brothers and their families lived; they had one child who died at six months. Toward the end of her life, Salaria, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, had forgotten who John was. He took care of her until his death in December 1986.
She died on May 18, 1990.
During an interview for The Good Fight documentary, she said, “I’m very proud that I went to Spain. ‘Cause I feel like I have done something in this world to help people. And that’s what I’m here for; that’s what we’ all are here for.”
2024 Wista Johnson (Reprint by permission only.) Photo: Courtesy of picyrl.com