Susie Taylor

Susie King Taylor was an American nurse, educator, and memoirist. Born into slavery in coastal Georgia, she is known for being the first African-American nurse during the American Civil War. Beyond her aptitude in nursing the wounded of the 1st South Carolina Colored Infantry Regiment, Taylor was the first Black woman to self-publish her memoirs. She was the author of Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers (1902). She was also an educator to formerly bonded Black people in the Reconstruction-era South when she opened various Freedmen's schools for them in and near the city of Savannah, Georgia. In her later years as a resident of Boston, Taylor became a main organizer of Corps 67 of the Massachusetts Woman's Relief Corps (1886).