Crow nurse fought forced sterilization for decades
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was sterilized without consent in 1934 and later led national efforts to improve Native health care.
By James Foster ·
Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail was sterilized without her consent in 1934, a personal trauma that fueled her decades of activism. She served as a registered nurse on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana and later held a national advisory role.
The procedure occurred during a surgery to remove an ovarian cyst. A White doctor performed the sterilization and later told her that three children were enough. Yellowtail had given birth to two children in local hospitals and decided to have her third child born at home in 1934.
She began her medical career after attending Bacone Indian School in Oklahoma and Northfield Seminary in Massachusetts. She completed her nursing degree from Boston City Hospital School of Nursing in 1927. She was one of the first Native women to become a registered nurse.
In 1928, she became a supervising nurse at the Crow Agency Hospital. She witnessed racial discrimination and poor health conditions there. She resigned from that position in 1929 after marrying Thomas Yellowtail. She moved to a ranch in Wyola, Montana, where she worked as a midwife for many years.
Her brother-in-law, Robert Yellowtail, supported her push for health reforms while serving as reservation superintendent in 1934. He sought to have her appointed as a reservation field nurse. White officials rejected her application because they considered her a troublemaker.
President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee on Indian Health in 1961. She continued serving under Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. In that role, she visited reservations and investigated medical problems to make recommendations.
She received the President’s Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care in 1962. The Montana Hall of Fame inducted her in 1987. The American Nurses Association Hall of Fame honored her in 2002. She died at her home in Wyola on Dec. 25, 1981, at age 78.
The American Indian Nurses Association named her the Grandmother of American Indian Nurses in 1978. Montana State University created the Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail Endowed Fund for Native American Nursing Students in 2026.
