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First African-American male CON graduate comes back  Joe Nelson Mitchell, R.N., the first African-American male to graduate from MUSC’s College of Nursing, visited the campus recently. Mitchell’s visit is part of Sarah Johnson’s effort to retrace the history of African Americans in health care. Mitchell came to the school of Nursing in 1972 after earning a degree in biology from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte. He spent two years in Vietnam as an operating room technician. Since his graduation in 1975, he has been an intensive care nurse in the Anderson Area Medical Center in Anderson. Mitchell is a native of Belton. He and his wife, Cynthia, have three daughters and one son. Johnson is writing a historical manuscript on the evolution of African Americans in the health care industry in Charleston. Her investigation covers the first dispensary on Cannon Street to the creation of the McClennan-Banks clinic, named after two of the pioneers of this history. Mitchell fits right in to this historical recreation. She hopes to see this manuscript published in a peer review journal soon.