To help her family make end meet, Diane Black had dropped out of school after 9th grade. She spent her first year in public housing in Baltimore. But she dreamed big. At 4, she asked her parents for a doctor’s kit for her birthday. Although they were not rich, her parents provided a safe and loving home for Diane and her siblings. She may have grown up poor but she had fun. She played with her friends, brothers and kept dreaming of being a nurse. But sadly, her parents couldn’t support those dreams. They couldn’t even send her to college since they don’t have money for that.

But Black’s high school councellor, Mr. Whiting, who believed in Black, pushed her to do well and eventually found a scholarship for her. He helped her a lot by encouraging her to do what she always wanted to do. The scholarship made her able to pay for the first year of nursing. She graduated and went to community college, paying for the second year by herself. She got married and followed her husband to Nashville, getting her nursing degree from Belmont. Black worked as a nurse through the late 1990s, when she first ran for and won a seat in the state legislature. After 10 years, Black ran for Congress and won. She has kept her nursing license current throughout.