Tuskegee Institute Hospital [Courtesy of Tuskegee University Digital Archives]
SHATTERING THE SILENCE: TUSKEGEE'S FORTY YEARS OF UNSPOKEN HARM
REVOLUTION, REACTION, REFORM
NATIONAL HISTORY DAY 2026
[Courtesy of the National Archives Catalog]
The U.S. Public Health Service began the Tuskegee Study in 1932 with 600 Black men to track the natural progression of untreated syphilis. Researchers screened 1,800 men through Tuskegee Institute clinics and enrolled those seeking treatment for ‘bad blood.’ The men underwent exams, blood draws, X‑rays, and spinal taps. The cure, penicillin, was withheld until a 1972 AP exposé ended the study.
Medical Staff [Courtesy of the National Archives as cited in BET]
Researchers saw the men as controllable subjects, using their vulnerability to justify lifelong observation without treatment.
“Such individuals seemed to offer an unusual opportunity to study the untreated syphilitic patient from the beginning of the disease to the death of the infected person.”
—R. A. Vonderlehr et al., Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro, 1936
Decades of continuity through Nurse Eunice Rivers let the USPHS mask long‑term surveillance as routine care.
"The same nurse and pathologist-radiologist have been working with and observing the two groups since they originally were selected for study"
—J. K. Shafer et al., Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro: A Prospective Study of the Effect on Life Expectancy, 1954
Nurse Rivers [Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives]