Joyce W. Paul

Location: North Carolina Museum of Art, Winston-Salem

Video by Julia Wall

Class of 1965

"I wanted to take care of people," said 1965 Kate Bitting Reynolds Memorial Hospital School of Nursing graduate Joyce W. Paul. In Pikeville, North Carolina, Paul had a guidance counselor who felt she should pursue journalism at Fisk University because of her writing skills. "But that's not what I wanted to do as a profession," she said. "I wanted to take care of people," and she left home at 16 years old to do just that.

Taking care of people is what Paul did for 43 years. During that time, she accumulated a second set of family members in Winston-Salem. "I found another family here. ... It feels like my second home." That kinship helped Paul and her classmates navigate the 1960s. As part of the first generation to work in desegregated spaces, there was a temperament needed when caring for those with whom the external differences were obvious. She said Katie B. prepared them for those environments and more. "You have to go forward with determination and kindness," she said. "You can't retaliate on everything ... respond to everything. You have to keep your focus."