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Estelle Massey Riddle Osborne (May 3, 1901- Dec. 12, 1981), African-American nurse, author, administrator, researcher, and consultant was a pioneer in organizational administration and a significant leader in struggles to eliminate discrimination in society as a whole and in the national professional nursing organizations in this country.
Mrs. Osborne's fight to eliminate exclusionary practices for blacks in nursing occurred during the time when rigid patterns of segregation and discrimination in nursing education and employment for blacks existed across this country. Black codes limiting access to institutions of learning and job opportunities, designed to constrain and contain Blacks, were legislated and enforced by laws and customs in the North and in the South. Working tirelessly for forty-three years, Mrs. Osborne was steadfast in her efforts to ensure that future Black nurses would have the opportunity to be experientially and educationally prepared to assume higher positions in nursing and have the opportunity to do so.
Estelle Massey was born in Palestine Texas, the eighth of eleven children, to Hall and Bettye Estelle Massey. Hall was just a handyman and farmer and Betty Estelle a domestic, but they were the most progressive and intelligent parents in town, Black or White. Dogged determination to rise above social norms and expectations of Blacks was demonstrated in where and how they lived and the way they reared their children. Living in the heart of an impoverished region where many Blacks and Whites lacked decent housing for their children, Hall bought property at the edge of the White section of town and built a home for his family. The Massey family was a self-sufficient, self-contained unit. The males fed the family and earned money by raising and selling their own vegetables and livestock, and Mrs. Massey made the family's clothing and earned money cleaning White people's homes. Even though Mrs. Massey worked in the homes of Whites, she never allowed her daughters to do so. She knew firsthand that Whites felt that Blacks were inferior, and she never wanted her daughters to be exposed to this type of ignorant bigotry. Neither parent was educated, but they determined that their children would be. All of the Massey children received an education that included a minimum of two years of college - an oddity...