Healing Under Jim Crow
19th Century - 20th Century
Between 1877 and the mid-1960s, Jim Crow was a rigid racial caste system that relegated Black Americans to second-class citizenship through discriminatory laws and social customs. This way of life legitimized anti-Black racism across all major societal institutions, including the medical field. Black physicians experienced discrimination and hostility from white physicians and patients due to Jim Crow.
To combat this, Black medical professionals started the Black Hospital Movement to counter racial injustice towards themselves and patients.
Gamble, Vanessa Northington. Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945. Oxford University Press, 1995.
- Public Health -
African Americans encountered poverty, leading to high rates of sickness and mortality. Medical facilities and homes were unhealthy environments in the 1930s.
Negro Hospitalization
"Interns and nurses at Provident Hospital and Training School,". Chicago,1922.
National Library of Medicine.
Black Physicians In Philadelphia
Many of the black physicians in Philadelphia were trained at reputable colleges.
W.E.B Dubois."The Phildelphia Negro". 1889.
Of these colleges, the Woman’s Medical College was fundamental to the growth of female physicians.
This is where Virginia Alexander started her career as a doctor and an activist.
"Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania,". National Library of Medicine.
Haley Lau and Tania Wasim
Senior Division
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