The end of legal racial segregation in healthcare in the 1960s precipitated the demise of many Black hospitals, which were a major source of employment and a center of pride for Black Americans.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 benefited millions of people. The federal campaign to desegregate hospitals, culminating in a 1969 court case out of Charleston, South Carolina, guaranteed Black patients across the South access to the same health care facilities as White patients. No longer were Black doctors and nurses prohibited from training or practicing medicine in white hospitals.
But progress came at a heavy cost. “And not just for physicians,” said Vanessa Northington Gamble, a medical doctor and historian at George Washington University. “They were social institutions, financial institutions, and also medical institutions.”
See “Southern Black Hospitals Were Closed. Can They Be Reopened?” (August 19, 2024)
