This session will focus on the legal and legislative foundations for the racial integration of hospitals and professional societies and the Federal government’s campaign to reverse overt racial discrimination, conducted in collaboration with the NAACP. Success in achieving the complete elimination of structural racism will be examined by looking at how this was achieved, and the degree to which communities in the North and South both avoided and responded to the demand for change.

Required Readings:

Edward H Beardsley. Chapter 11, “Desegregating Southern Medicine.” In: A History of Neglect, pp. 262-72.

Mary Carnegie and Estelle Osborne. “Integration in Professional Nursing.” In: Black Women in the Nursing Profession. Edit by DC Hine. pp. 145 – 49.

David B Smith,”Chapter 3, “The North Carolina Campaign,” and “The Federal Offensive.” In: Health Care Divided, pp. 64-95. 96-142.

P. Preston Reynolds. Professional and Hospital Discrimination and the US Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit. Amer Jou Pub Health. 2004;94:710-720.

P. Preston Reynolds. The Federal Government’s Use of Title VI and Medicare to Racially Integrate Hospitals in the United States, 1963-67.  Amer Jou Pub Health.  1997;87:1850-58. 

Questions

1. When did the nursing profession racially integrate?  How did black nurses define the racial integration of their profession? Did black nurses work to racially integrate hospitals?  If so, to what degree?  If not, why not?
2. What legal actions were taken to racially integrate hospitals and professional societies? What role did the NAACP Legal Defense and Education fund play in these lawsuits?
3. What legal case served as the landmark court decision in hospital integration? What were the plaintiffs requesting? Were they successful in overturning all aspects of Jim Crow medicine?
4. What was the most important provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to the effort to racially integrate hospitals?
5. How did civil rights organizations, like the NAACP, create pressure for the federal government to investigate hospitals charged with non-compliance with the 1964 CRA?
6. Who were some of the leadership inside the federal government most committed to ending discrimination in hospitals?
7. By the mid-1960s, was hospital discrimination still a problem in the North?  In the South?
8. Why did the federal government use Medicare to racially integrate hospitals throughout the country?
9. How did the federal government use Medicare to racially integrate hospitals throughout the country?