From a young age, Hazel Johnson wanted to be a nurse. Born in 1927, the daughter of farmers grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She worked hard and excelled at school with the goal of attending nursing school. Upon graduating from high school in the last 1940s, however, West Chester School of Nursing rejected her admission due to her race. It was not uncommon for institutions to limit or bar acceptance of people of color in this period. This prejudice affected Johnson throughout her life, though in her own words, “race is an incidence of birth.”
Johnson moved to New York to train at the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing, a school specifically for Black women. She trained in Harlem for several years before returning to her family in Pennsylvania. There, she found a job at the Philadelphia Veterans Association. Through this position, she became familiar with the Army Nurse Corps. The travel and opportunities offered by the Army Nurse Corps intrigued her, and she enlisted in 1955. Only seven years earlier, the Army Nurse Corps was racially integrated when President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981.During active duty, Johnson served in several leadership roles in the Army Nurse Corps. She transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where she worked from 1960 to 1962. Having discovered a love of education, she attended Columbia University Teachers College. There, she earned her Master of Science in Nursing Education. Johnson’s passion for teaching continued for the rest of her career. She trained nurses for service both in the operating room and in combat medical tents in Vietnam.