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Overview
Betty Smith Williams (born Betty Leola Smith) is an American nurse and social justice advocate in the medical field. Williams was the first African-American to wear the cap of Cleveland and to graduate from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1954. Among this first, she was also the first African-American person to be an instructor at a college or university in the state of California, along with being the first woman and African-American to be elected as a public member of the Board of Directors of the Blue Cross of Southern California. Williams is also known for being the co-founder of the National Black Nurses Association (1971), which aimed to improve healthcare for African-Americans, along with being involved in the founding of other organizations like the Los Angeles Council of Black Nurses (1968) and the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurses Associations. As of 2018, Williams has been working for over 50 years to advocate for minority representation in healthcare.

Early Life
Williams was born in 1929 and grew up in South Bend, Indiana. Likely inspired by her mother, who advocated for equal rights for all and was a leader of the NAACP chapter in South Bend in the 1930s, Williams was interested in making social change from a young age. Her parents supported her in letting her believe she can do anything she wanted to, which was uncommon for a black woman to believe at the time. Due to her limited contact with nurses growing up in South Bend, Williams did not originally plan on going into nursing, but in school she realized she wanted to advance the nursing field by focusing on health disparities that affect minority communities.

Education
Williams has been awarded various certifications including DrPH (Doctor of Public Health) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), MN (Master of Nursing) from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing (FPB), MSN (Master of Science in Nursing) from UCLA, BS (bachelor of science) from Howard University, RN (Nursing licensure), and FAAN (Nursing fellowship).

Williams earned her Bachelor of Science in zoology from Howard University in Washington D.C. in 1950. She received her Master's of Nursing (MN) from the FPB at Case Western Reserve University in 1954, making her the first African-American to graduate from Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. She got a Master's of Science in Nursing (MSN) from the UCLA in 1967 and her doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) in 1978.

Professional Career and Adult Life
Williams' nursing career started with her first job at the Cleveland Visiting Nurse Association (VNA), which provides home and hospice care to people in the community. Following this job, Williams moved to Los Angeles California in 1955, where she worked for the Department of Health. In 1956, Williams began teaching public health nursing in Los Angeles, where she was the first African-American individual to teach at the baccalaureate level in the entire state of California.

Around this time (married in July 1954) Betty Leola Smith Williams was newly married to Harold Louis Williams, FAIA (1924-2015). Her husband Harold was the founder and first president of the Southern California Association of Minority Architects and Planners (MAP) and was also the co-founder of The National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), both of which are organizations that focus on fixing the obstacles minority individuals face in the field of architecture through mentoring, awareness and professional development. Between Betty and Harold, the two of them spent much of their lives being leaders in creating social and structural change in their respective fields for the betterment of the lives of minority populations.

Williams has been very influential in creating programs to advance minority progress in the medical world. After completing her Master’s of Science degree in Public Health Nursing from UCLA in 1967, she co-founded the Council of Black Nurses in Los Angeles with Barbara Johnson in 1968. In that year she was working as an assistant professor at the University of California School of Nursing. While faculty at UCLA, she served as the first African-American Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs.

Williams traveled back to Cleveland in 1971 to meet with 17 other leaders in the national map of nursing, where she established the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA), an organization meant to open up opportunities to black nurses and advance the field to focus more on issues that disproportionately affect minority populations.

Seven years later, Williams left her job as an assistant professor at the University of California and became a professor and dean in the School of Nursing at the University of Colorado in in 1979. She was the first African-American Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where she implemented University of Colorado's first nursing Ph.D. program.

Williams retired in 1995, the same year she became president of the NBNA organization she had founded 24 years earlier. She was the 7th president of the organization. In the same year that she finished her presidential term in the NBNA in 1999, Williams soon became the first president of a new organization Williams founded called the National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Association (NCEMNA). The NCEMNA is a group that holds five national nursing organizations under it (Asian American/Pacific Islander Nurses Association, the National Alaska/Native American Indian Nurses Association, the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, the National Black Nurses Association, and the Philippine Nurses Association of America) and represents 350,000 ethnic minority nurses.

Dr. Williams served as president of the NCEMNA again in 2013 with Dr. Antonia M. Villarruel as her vice president. Williams led a group of five members of the NCEMNA to create the Nurse Scientist Stimulation Program, where she secured over 2.4 million dollars in grant money while she was president.

As of 2018, Williams has been working as a professor emeritus at California State University, Long Beach.

Awards and Honors

 * Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing Distinguished Alumnae Award (1998)
 * American Academy of Nursing Living Legends Award, its highest honor (2010)
 * Villager Award Recipient (2014)
 * On Ebony Magazine's list of 100+ Influential Organization Leaders
 * Betty Smith Williams Scholarship offered by UCLA School of Public Health (1989)

Along with over 70 other awards, honors and citations.

Associated Organizations and Positions Held

 * National Black Nurses Association: co-founder (1971), seventh president (1995-1999)
 * School of Nursing at the University of California: assistant professor (1968-1978)
 * National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations (NCEMNA): founding member, president
 * Council of Black Nurses, Inc., Los Angeles: co-founder (1968)
 * Chi Eta Phi: Honorary Member
 * American Academy of Nursing: Fellow
 * Delta Sigma Theta Inc.: National Treasurer, President of Telecommunications
 * School of Nursing at the University of Colorado: Dean and Professor (1979-1984)
 * American University of Health Sciences: Founding Dean (2006)
 * Mount Saint Mary’s College: Assistant Professor (1956-1968)