Federal laws and Supreme Court decisions loosened the tight grip of Jim Crow racism on access to health care and opportunities for careers in the health professions for Black students and trainees. With the growth of hospitals made possible with Hill-Burton funding, Black medical graduates discovered they had increased opportunities for advanced post-graduate residency and specialty training. Many Hill-Burton hospitals opened their doors to Black patients thus increasing access to hospital care in many northern and southern communities. And yet, despite victory at the Supreme Court with litigation involving access to higher education for Black students, many medical and dental schools remained closed to Black applicants or applied strict quotas for admission. This would change in part because of the foundation of activism laid in the decade following WWII era.   

Objectives

1. Describe the growth or the lack thereof in the number of Black nurses, physicians, dentists, pharmacists and public health professionals.
2. Describe the impact of the Hill-Burton Act on the number of hospitals and nurses training programs in the country.
3. Describe the impact of the Hill-Burton Act on providing access to health and hospital care for Black persons in many small, rural communities.
4. Describe state and federal laws that permitted the continued segregation of Blacks and whites in the delivery of health and hospital care..
5. Describe policies that denied admission of Black physicians, dentists and nurses to health professions schools post-World War II
6. Describe policies that denied membership of Black physicians, dentists and nurses to professional organizations post-World War II
7. Describe policies that denied professional staff privileges and jobs to Black physicians, dentists and nurses in hospitals post-World War II