“Zippy” Hammond left a large legacy of service
First Black CU nursing school grad also avid volunteer
Zipporah Hammond was 10 years old when she decided she wanted to be a nurse. Her mother, the first Black woman to be a valedictorian at a Denver public high school, had just died, and watching her struggles throughout the sickness and people’s willingness to help out solidified Hammond’s choice.
Hammond looked to clear the high bar her mother set, said Hammond’s son, Stephen Hammond .
Born in 1924, Zipporah Hammond — or “Zippy” — didn’t like to draw attention to herself. She was admitted into the University of Colorado School of Nursing in 1941 — one of 30 students. During her time at CU, she and other minority students were not treated equally, but Stephen Hammond said his mother wasn’t bitter.
She ended up as the first Black nursing graduate at the University of Colorado and would deflect the attention over her milestones, which also included beating tuberculosis and becoming the first person of color to hold a hospital leadership position in Denver at the young age of 29.
“That’s the way she approached her life, being unassuming and stepping in where she thought that it would make a difference,” he said.
Zipporah Hammond’s sons, Stephen and Darrell , have nominated their mother to be part of the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame. She has been considered five times since 2011 but has yet to be inducted.
“Zipporah’s firsts represent positive change and lasting milestones in Colorado history,” their nomination application states. “Her success ultimately broke down barriers and made it easier for women and minorities to enroll in college to pursue nursing as a career.”
Stephen Hammond said Black History Month is the perfect time to celebrate his mother and her effort to make the world a better place. She died in 2011 and would have turned 97 on Monday.
“Black History Month is an opportunity to raise up people in our society, and she certainly fits into that,” he said. “Understanding our history is an important way to figure out how to not make mistakes we’ve made in the past and how to move forward as a society in a very positive way.”
“She’s done so many things”
After nursing school, 22-yearold Zipporah Hammond become a nurse at the Colorado General Hospital in Denver. Later she moved to Alabama to become chief surgical nurse for the Infantile Paralysis Unit of the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital at the Tuskegee Institute.
Nearly a year later, she contracted tuberculosis and came back to Denver, where she was hospitalized at National Jewish Health.
It was there when she met her husband, Sheldon.
She recovered and returned to CU for her medical librarian’s certification in 1951. Two years later, she rose to the title of director of medical records at what is now Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Her son Stephen said she dedicated her life to her work, her family and to others as a volunteer. From 1998 to 2005, she helped train more than 200 CU medical students. For 17 years, beginning in 1992, Hammond also volunteered at the Denver Public Library on a historical preservation effort to piece together Black history in Denver.
“She’s just done so many things to help our community over the course of time,” Stephen Hammond said.
In light of the legacy she has left in the community, the Zipporah Parks Hammond Memorial Nursing Scholarship endowment fund was created in 2012, a year after her death. To honor her memory, recipients have to be avid volunteers in their community, along with pursuing a nursing degree.
“It’s great to see how are progressing and the things they’re doing to make a difference for the next nurses,” Stephen Hammond said.
If his mother was alive today, he said, she would say that persistence is key. Even though things may not be how you’d want them to be, Zipporah Hammond encouraged people from marginalized communities to continue to move forward and help yourself where you can, he said.
“To make a change in something that perhaps didn’t work well for you, you need to step up and do something to make a difference,” he said. “Be the change that you want to see.”
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZ.» When Wyoming U.S. Sen. John Barrasso snapped at Deb Haaland during her confirmation hearing, many in Indian Country were incensed.
The exchange, coupled with descriptions of the interior secretary nominee as “radical” — by other white, male Republicans — left some feeling Haaland is being treated differently because she is a Native American woman. “If it was any other person, they would not be subjected to being held accountable for their ethnicity,” said Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Aquinnah in Massachusetts.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Barrasso wanted assurance that Haaland would follow the law when it comes to imperiled species. Before the congresswoman finished her response, Barrasso shouted, “I’m talking about the law!”
Barrasso, former chairman of Senate Indian Affairs Committee, later said his uncharacteristic reaction was a sign of frustration over Haaland dodging questions. “My constituents deserve straight answers from the potential secretary about the law,” he said in a statement. “They got very few of those.”
Among Haaland supporters across the nation who tuned in virtually, it was infuriating.
“It was horrible. It was disrespectful,” said Rebecca Ortega of Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. “I just feel like if it would have been a white man or a white woman, he would never have yelled like that.”
The Interior Department has broad oversight of energy development, along with tribal affairs, and some Republican senators have labeled Haaland “radical” over her calls to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and address climate change.
They said that could hurt rural America and major oil and gas-producing states. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy after two days of hearings called Haaland a “neosocialist,
whack job.”
Andrews-Maltais saw “radical” as a code for “you’re an Indian.”
But Republican Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said it’s not about race. Daines frequently uses the term to describe Democrats and their policies, including President Joe Biden and former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, whom Daines defeated in November.
“As much as I would love to see a Native American be on the president’s Cabinet, I have concerns about her record . ... To say otherwise is outrageous and offensive,” he said.
Civil rights activists say Haaland’s treatment fits a pattern of minority nominees encountering more political resistance than white counterparts.
The confirmation of Neera Tanden, who would be the first Indian-American to head the Office of Management and Budget, was thrown into doubt when it lost support from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He cited her controversial tweets attacking members of both parties.
Critics also have targeted Vanita Gupta, an IndianAmerican and Biden’s pick to be associate attorney general, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as health and human services secretary. Conservatives launched campaigns calling Gupta “dangerous” and questioning Becerra’s qualifications.
Democrats pushed back against Haaland’s treatment and questioned if attempts to block her nomination are motivated by something other than her record. Former U.S. Sens. and cousins Tom Udall of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado said Haaland “should be afforded the same respect and deference” as other nominees.
The hearing itself, in which Haaland was grilled on oil and gas development, national parks and tribes, represented a cultural clash in how the Democrat and many Indigenous people view the world — everything is intertwined and must exist in balance, preserving the environment for generations to come. left-of-Lenin
That was seen in Haaland’s response when asked about her motivation to be interior secretary. She recalled a story about Navajo Code Talkers in World War II who prioritized coming up with a word in their native language for “Mother Earth.”
“It’s difficult to not feel obligated to protect this land, and I feel that every Indigenous person in this country understands that,” she said.
Andrew Werk Jr., president of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes on Montana’s Fort Belknap Reservation, said Republicans’ brusque treatment of Haaland was unfair to her and to Americans.
But he doesn’t see any racial bias in Daines’ actions for dismissing Haaland as a “radical,” only hardened partisanship.
“For all the reasons Sen. Daines opposes her, those are all the reasons we support her in Fort Belknap,” Werk said. “Our land is our identity, and as tribes we want to be good stewards and protect that.”
Despite Republican opposition, Haaland has enough Democratic support to become the first Native American to lead the Interior Department.
Haaland, 60, weaved childhood memories, experiences on public land and tribes’ rights into her answers during the hearing. She talked about carrying buckets of water for her grandmother down a dusty road at Laguna Pueblo, where she’s from, careful not to spill a drop because she recognized its importance. She talked about harvesting an oryx, a type of antelope, that fed her family for a year, about her support for protecting grizzly bears indefinitely and her ancestors’ sacrifices.
Frank White Clay, chairman of the Crow Tribe, which gets much of its revenue from a coal mine on its southeastern Montana reservation, said Republicans have “legitimate concerns about natural resources.” But he urged them to consider the historic nature of Haaland’s nomination.
“A Native woman up for confirmation — her issues are Indian Country issues,” White Clay said.