Jessie Juanita Pippins (February 2, 1927 – May 10, 2020) was an American registered nurse and AIDS activist. She was the co-founder of Miracle House, a housing facility for family members of those affected by HIV and AIDS.

Early life

Jessie Juanita Roberts was born in

Dothan, Alabama Dothan () is a city in Dale, Henry, and Houston counties and the Houston county seat in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is Alabama's eighth-largest city, with a population of 71,072 at the 2020 census. It is near the state's southeastern corner, ...

, the daughter of Alto Lee Roberts and Junie Roberts. Her father was a cotton farmer. She studied nursing at

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

Career and advocacy

Pippins worked as a psychiatric nurse before her retirement in 1981, superintendent of the psychiatric unit at University Hospital in Pensacola. In 1987, Pippins relocated from Pensacola to New York to care for her actor son, Nick Pippin, and developed relationships with his friends. After Pippin died in 1990, Pippins co-founded and volunteered with Miracle House, to provide housing and support for out-of-town families of AIDS patients. "If I can help these families get to New York and survive it, then all these boys wouldn't have to die without their mothers." She also founded a program to reunite AIDS patients with their estranged families. Nick Pippin's partner, Dennis Daniel, wrote a tribute to Pippins in 2007, marking her 80th birthday, titled "The Mother of Us All." In 2010,

NY1 News NY1 (also officially known as Spectrum News NY1 and spoken as New York One) is an American cable news television channel founded by Time Warner Cable, which itself is owned by Charter Communications through its acquisition in May 2016. The channe ...

featured Pippins as the New Yorker of the Week.

Personal life

Nita Roberts married Joseph S. Pippins. They had one child together, Nick, before they divorced in 1981. She died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

on Mother's Day, May 10, 2020, at age 93.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pippins, Nita 1927 births 2020 deaths HIV/AIDS activists American health activists Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New York (state) American women nurses