THE NEGRO HOSPITAL RENAISSANCE: THE BLACK HOSPITAL MOVEMENT, 1920--1940

This thesis is a study of the black hospital movement that took place between 1920-1940. In the 1920s, the conditions for black physicians were not auspicious. At a time when the hospital had become crucial to medical practice and medical education, the growing importance of hospital standardization and accreditation threatened to eliminate the black hospital and with it, the black physicians\u27 professional existence. In response, a group of elite black physicians launched a movement to improve black hospitals. They hoped to bring about a Negro Hospital Renaissance. The necessity of separate facilities for black people was at the heart of the black hospital movement\u27s ideology. The physicians associated with the movement claimed that their programs represented a practical response to the racial realities of American life in the 1920s and 1930s and that black physicians needed black hospitals in order to survive. However, this accommodationist philosophy came under fire from integrationists who pushed for integration of hospital facilities and argued that the place for black physicians was not in Jim Crow institutions. Tensions between the accommodationists and integrationists developed in the hospital field during the 1920s and 1930s. These conflicts are illustrated in case studies of several black hospitals, including Chicago\u27s Provident Hospital. This thesis examines, in detail, the role of two important black medical organizations, the National Hospital Association and the National Medical Association, in black hospital reform. The activities of three white philanthropies, the General Education Board, the Duke Endowment, and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, in promoting black medical concerns are also analyzed. Hopes for a Negro Hospital Renaissance were not realized. Some improvements were achieved at a few hospitals that had external sources of support. The majority of black hospitals remained substandard. Factors that limited the scope of the reform movement included the Depression, the ineffectiveness of the black medical organizations, inadequate support from major health care organizations, and rise of integrationism. Despite these limitations, the black hospital movement has had a lasting legacy: it forestalled the feared extinction of the black hospital and enabled the black medical profession to survive at a time when its existence was surely endangered

THE NEGRO HOSPITAL RENAISSANCE: THE BLACK HOSPITAL MOVEMENT, 1920--1940

This thesis is a study of the black hospital movement that took place between 1920-1940. In the 1920s, the conditions for black physicians were not auspicious. At a time when the hospital had become crucial to medical practice and medical education, the growing importance of hospital standardization and accreditation threatened to eliminate the black hospital and with it, the black physicians\u27 professional existence. In response, a group of elite black physicians launched a movement to improve black hospitals. They hoped to bring about a Negro Hospital Renaissance. The necessity of separate facilities for black people was at the heart of the black hospital movement\u27s ideology. The physicians associated with the movement claimed that their programs represented a practical response to the racial realities of American life in the 1920s and 1930s and that black physicians needed black hospitals in order to survive. However, this accommodationist philosophy came under fire from integrationists who pushed for integration of hospital facilities and argued that the place for black physicians was not in Jim Crow institutions. Tensions between the accommodationists and integrationists developed in the hospital field during the 1920s and 1930s. These conflicts are illustrated in case studies of several black hospitals, including Chicago\u27s Provident Hospital. This thesis examines, in detail, the role of two important black medical organizations, the National Hospital Association and the National Medical Association, in black hospital reform. The activities of three white philanthropies, the General Education Board, the Duke Endowment, and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, in promoting black medical concerns are also analyzed. Hopes for a Negro Hospital Renaissance were not realized. Some improvements were achieved at a few hospitals that had external sources of support. The majority of black hospitals remained substandard. Factors that limited the scope of the reform movement included the Depression, the ineffectiveness of the black medical organizations, inadequate support from major health care organizations, and rise of integrationism. Despite these limitations, the black hospital movement has had a lasting legacy: it forestalled the feared extinction of the black hospital and enabled the black medical profession to survive at a time when its existence was surely endangered

Dr Herman A. Barnett, Black Civil Rights Activists, and the Desegregation of The University of Texas Medical Branch in 1949: We Ought to Go in Texas and I Don\u27t Mean to a Segregated Medical School

In May 1949, Herman A. Barnett III, a 23-year-old Black veteran, applied to The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston. His application occurred in the wake of Black student protests against the segregationist policies of The University of Texas and of judicial victories by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to eradicate racial inequalities in state-financed graduate and professional education. Barnett\u27s application prompted the state to fund a medical school at the Texas State University for Negroes, the only time a state ever attempted to thwart desegregation by financing a separate Black medical school. Barnett was clearly qualified for admission to UTMB, and if the school rejected him, he had agreed to be a plaintiff in an NAACP lawsuit. Legal action was not necessary, however. In August 1949 Barnett was accepted into UTMB, thereby becoming the second African American person to desegregate a Southern medical school. Barnett was technically admitted on a contract basis as a student at the Texas State University for Negroes in Houston and was to have transferred there later. The Black medical school was never built and Barnett graduated from UTMB in 1953. This review analyzes the role that Barnett and Black civil rights activists played in the history of medical education in the US and the dismantlement of racially exclusionary policies in medical schools

“There Wasn't a Lot of Comforts in Those Days:” African Americans, Public Health, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

When the 1918 influenza epidemic began, African American communities were already beset by many public health, medical, and social problems, including racist theories of black biological inferiority, racial barriers in medicine and public health, and poor health status. To address these problems, African Americans mounted efforts such as establishing separate hospitals and professional organizations and repudiating racist scientific theories. Contradicting prevailing theories about African Americans' increased susceptibility to disease, it appears that during the 1918 epidemic the incidence of influenza was lower in African Americans. Although the epidemic had a less devastating impact on African American communities, it still overwhelmed their medical and public health resources. Observations about the lower rates of influenza in African Americans did not derail racist theories about the biological inferiority of black people or overturn conceptualizations of black people as disease threats to white people. When the epidemic ended, the major problems that African Americans faced still remained

U.S. Policy on Health Inequities: the Interplay of Politics and Research

What is the relationship between scientific research and government action in addressing health inequalities in the United States? What factors increase the impact of scientific research on public policy? To answer these questions, we focus on racial and ethnic disparities in health status and health care in the United States. We first review the history of the disparities issue to elucidate how the continual and persistent interplay between political action and scientific research drives government policy. We then analyze two recent government-sponsored reports about racial and ethnic disparities to understand the strategic consequences of issue framing. We draw lessons about how disparities research can have a greater impact on public policy

Clinical Research with Older African Americans and Latinos: Perspectives from the Community

Abstract available at publisher's web site