Oretta Mae Todd
Nurse and Dean
Highland Park Community College Nursing Program
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BIOGRAPHY
Dr.
Oretta Todd was born to Otha Mae Johnson and Daniel Samuel
Davis on June 3, 1933 in Detroit Michigan. After graduating
from Pershing High School in 1950, Dr. Todd applied to
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, because it offered
a bachelors degree in nursing. Upon being accepted, she
wrote the college asking whether they realized she was
a black woman. The college told her that her color did
not matter; she enrolled in Skidmore and completed her
Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 1954. While at Skidmore,
she helped to start the campus chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Following graduation in 1954 and a four month public health training tour in New York
City, Dr. Todd returned to Detroit because of her desire to work within the African
American community. She had worked summers at Burton Mercy (then Wayne Diagnostic)
Hospital while she was a student, and returned to work there full-time. Between 1956 and
1963, Dr. Todd worked at Detroit Receiving and Highland Park General hospitals, but
continued to work part-time at Burton Mercy because she loved working there. In 1963, she
received an M.A. in nursing from Wayne State University and then entered New York
University and earned a certificate in midwifery. Upon completing her training at New York
University, she was asked by the dean at Wayne State to become an instructor at the
nursing school. In 1964, she began teaching for Wayne State University and worked at
Hutzel (then Woman's) Hospital.
In 1970, Dr. Todd left Wayne State University and went to work at Kirwood Hospital for
a few years prior to its closing. Four years later, she became the Dean of Nursing at
Highland Park Community College. She worked in this position until 1994, shortly before
the Highland Park Nursing Program closed.
Dr. Todd received her Ph.D. in higher education, with a major in community college
administration, from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 1986. She has been involved
in a number of professional and community organizations, such as Chi Eta Phi, the NAACP,
the Detroit Urban League, and the Afro-American Museum Development Committee (currently
known as the Museum of African American History) where she served as their first
secretary. |
Tape recorded interview;
Detroit, MI
1 May 1997 |
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| The
following excerpt illustrates Individual
counter-actions made against segregation in "white"
institutions:
"When I got through with that experience
and I actually started working on staff at Hutzel [Hospital] while I was waiting for
students to come, I decided that I was going to put blacks and whites wherever they had to
be--I wasn't going to keep them upstairs in labor and delivery--I mean in the recovery
room. So, I assigned them a room as long as...you'd have what rooms are available. I just
pulled them and sent them down there. I made the mistake...Dr. S. had this very, very
important lady from Grosse Pointe. I put her in a room and then when the next patient came
in and they had "semi-private", I put her in the same room. Dr. S. happened to
come in that evening and he said, "Who did this? I don't mix my patients with
blacks!" So he came flying up to labor and delivery. I said, "I did Dr. S."
I said, "The two patients got along real well and I saw no reason to let your patient
be alone when she was associating with this other patient up in recovery." Oh, he was
furious with me! But, because I was black, he didn't do anything, but I think he said
something to somebody else. So when Dr. [Charles] Wright came up I said, "You know
Dr. Wright, I don't think Dr. S. is happy with me, I mixed the patients." He said,
"Good!" That was the first time they had actually mixed racial groups
there." |
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