THE BLACK ANGELS

New York City 1929 A sanatorium a deadly disease and a dire nurse shortage So begins the remarkable true story of the Black nurses who helped cure tuberculosis one of the world s deadliest plagues told alongside the often strange chronicle of the cure s discovery SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN HESSELL TILTMAN PRIZE 2024 A tour de force PEN Gripping New York Times Wonderfully told an invaluable restoration of another of history s racially biased omissions Diana Evans Their triumphant story has until now been almost completely neglected The Bookseller Informative enthralling and sometimes appalling this is history at its best Booklist During those dark pre antibiotic days when tuberculosis killed 1 in 7 people white nurses at Sea View New York s largest municipal hospital began quitting Desperate to avert a public health crisis city officials summoned Black southern nurses luring them with promises of good pay a career and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow But after arriving they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility dubbed the pest house where no one left alive Spanning the Great Depressio