‘Retired’ nurse Sherrill Jackson works for health equity, breast cancer prevention and support

Sherrill Jackson is polite, soft-spoken, and persistent. She has accomplished a great deal in her mission to improve health equity since her early years as a nurse in training at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in the 1960s, particularly for women’s health. She created mammogram screening programs at two Federally Qualified Health Centers in St. Louis and co-founded the long-standing breast cancer support organization, The Breakfast Club.

Jeff City to the STL

When Sherrill’s mother was in labor with her in 1946, her father drove the hundred miles from where they lived in Jefferson City to Hannibal. He did the same for her younger sister Connie. Sherrill’s not sure why the trips were made—her mother did have relatives about 10 miles away in New London, Mo.—but she suspects the hospital was friendlier to people of color than in Jefferson City. She jokes, “Maybe that’s why momma only had two children.”

Sherrill says there was a line of distinction between social classes in Jefferson City and they were below that line. Though her father taught woodworking at Lincoln University, a historically black college or university (HBCU), he wasn’t a professor. The family lived on Lafayette Street, which she says was a thriving business center but went unrecognized as such by the “upper crust.”

When Sherrill was in elementary school, her father decided it was time to move. “He wanted to be somewhere where positions were more stationary,” she says. He got a job teaching woodworking at Lighthouse for the Blind and the family moved to north St. Louis. She still has some of his creations.

Sherrill graduated from Beaumont High School in 1964 and was determined to be a nurse. She was captivated by the polished and professional nursing attire of her friend’s sister. “She had this white uniform and white shoes,” she says. “And when it was chilly, she had this jacket and cap.”

Sherrill started as a volunteer candy striper at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, visiting with patients and aiding nurses anywhere she was needed. She was so active back then, she says, “You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t a nurse.” Homer G. was the only public hospital for African Americans in St. Louis for many years. Even after a desegregation order in 1955, it continued to see primarily Black patients until it was controversially closed in 1979.

Sherrill started her nursing training at Homer G. and lived in the nurse dorm. She would invite her nursing friends over for her father’s barbecue every Saturday.  Occasionally, Sherrill would go to friends’ homes in the South.  She says, “some could not be registered nurses in some of the states they lived in because of their color.” She remains good friends with her classmates. Sherrill says she wasn’t initially sure where she wanted to be a nurse. She knew she didn’t like the Emergency Room. She originally thought she wanted to be in the Obstetrics & Gynecology Department, until she worked in Pediatrics. “I knew that’s where I wanted to be,” she says.

Family

Sherrill graduated Homer G. in 1967 and continued to work in Pediatrics for another year before getting married. “I fell in love with my high school sweetheart,” she says, and her husband had to move for military service to Northern California. There, she worked in the predominantly Caucasian suburban hospitals and she and her husband were actively involved in protests for civil rights and women’s rights—including Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Black Power movement.

After military service, Sherrill’s husband was accepted into a college in Southern California. They moved and had a son, Marcus. The marriage ended and she and her son moved back to St. Louis with her parents.

Sherrill’s father treated Marcus like the son he never had, she says, “I had to put my foot down sometimes, because he wanted to take him everywhere.” She laughs. “I think me and Connie dropped from our status.”

Sherrill got a job at St. Mary’s Hospital in Granite City, Il. While at St. Mary’s, the hospital held a dance. Sherrill didn’t want to go alone, so her friend Carolyn went with her. Sherrill also saw a longtime friend, Ronald, there. The three of them would often hang out together, but she says,

That evening was different. We were dancing and looking at each other… and just smiling. It just changed.

Ronald had a daughter, Ronda.  Sherrill and Ronald got married and “we raised our children like they were our biological kids,” she says, and made no restrictions on them seeing their other biological parents. Both kids are doing well today, she says. Marcus is a creative director in California and Ronda is Vice President at KABOOM!, a national nonprofit that seeks to end playspace inequity by building playgrounds for communities of color.

Sherrill left St. Mary’s to earn a bachelor’s degree at Saint Louis University and became a nurse practitioner. Visiting Nurse Association paid for her schooling, and in exchange, Sherrill gave them two years of service and visited patients all over the St. Louis metropolitan area.

In 1978, the year her father died, Sherrill began working at Grace Hill Health Centers (renamed Affinia Healthcare in 2015), primarily off North Grand. She spent 27 years at Grace Hill committed to caring for medically underserved individuals.

The Breakfast Club

In December 1991, Sherrill was diagnosed with breast cancer, discovered during one of her routine mammogram appointments. She wanted to enjoy the holidays with her family, so she talked with her doctor about starting treatment in January and he agreed.

Sherrill opted for a mastectomy and received two chemotherapy treatments per month. She did not get radiation treatment. At the time, Sherrill had planned to pursue a master’s degree, but she says it took her about a year to go through treatment and recovery.

Ronald took time off from his job at AT&T to help with recovery. “My husband went with me for all my visits,” she says. “When he went back to work, he had someone come to the house almost every day.”

In 1996, while in Centennial Christian Church one Sunday, she says, “I was sitting in my pew, minding my own business, I thought, and I really did hear this voice, ‘Get up and say that you are now a survivor of five years.’” She had talked to a few people about her cancer, but never said it publicly. She explained what she went through to the congregation and six more women spoke up that they, too, were private breast cancer survivors.

A woman in her thirties, married with two children, told Sherrill how she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was getting lots of advice from people who had never had the disease. Sherrill suggested they meet for breakfast with some of Sherrill’s survivor friends. The young woman loved that idea.

Sherrill, her friend, and the young woman sat in the restaurant for four hours on a cold January morning in 1997. “I’m surprised they didn’t put us out,” she says. The woman asked if they were going to meet next month. They agreed and as they met each month, other women found out and joined them. Once they reached 10 people, Sherrill thought they needed a name for the group. Her husband suggested “The Breakfast Club.”

Sherrill says a pastor told them, “You all need to decide if you’re going to stay small and intimate or if you’re together for another reason. If you don’t decide, other people are going to decide for you.” They became a 501(c)(3) organization and began exploring gaps in what their communities needed.

One of the first programs was Faith on the Move, in which mammography vans visit churches; St. Louis Metropolitan Clergy Coalition has been instrumental in getting churches on board.  They also started the Breast Health Buddy Program, which offers one-on-one support from survivors to those who have recently been diagnosed.

The Breakfast Club provides services to medically underserved and uninsured women: bras and breast forms, and more recently, gloves and sleeves to help with swelling from lymphedema. She says Medicare doesn’t consider gloves and sleeves to be part of the breast cancer journey and won’t pay for it.

She says she hadn’t realized so many Black women thought of breast cancer as the disease white women get. She says education has improved, but it still has a long way to go, noting the high health disparities for Black women.

Sherrill says The Breakfast Club had to earn trust. “We had to prove to our community that we’re not going to put anything into our community if it’s not quality,” she says.

Around the same time The Breakfast Club was developing, a friend suggested Sherrill should start working for Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers (PHC). Sherrill wanted to reopen PHC’s radiology department and start a mammogram program like she did at Grace Hill.

Sherrill spoke to the CEO at Grace Hill for over two hours explaining how she could work at PHC one day a week and continue doing her work at Grace Hill before he told her, “It seems like you’re going to do what you want to do. Okay, let’s try it and see how it works.” She did and the program continues to thrive. Last month, PHC announced its new state-of-the-art 3D mammography unit at 11642 W. Florissant Ave.

Sherrill worked one day a week at PHC for nearly a decade before she decided to take a full-time position to manage a school-based health program. She says, “Somebody put my name in there. I didn’t even know if I’d like it, to be honest.” She ended up liking it and stayed in the position until she retired in 2016.

Sherrill continues to be active on boards, with her church, and with The Breakfast Club. Ronald passed away in 2017. A friend asked Sherrill what she did for fun among all her work with the community. Sherrill realized it wasn’t much, so she joined the Red Hat Society, a “worldwide membership society that encourages women in their quest to get the most out of life” and regularly enjoys their events.