Slavery to Liberation- The African American Experience, 2019a

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U.S. Public Health Service in 1932. The program recruited 600 Black men—399 with
syphilis, and 201 not infected—for a study on the effects of the disease. Administrators
promised free medical treatment for participants. However, physicians did not inform
the men of the purpose of the study and did not treat the individuals who had syphilis,
even after penicillin was discovered as a cure in 1947. In 1972, the Associated Press
reported on the story, leading to a public outcry and investigations. Recent research has
demonstrated that the history of medical exploitation, particularly the Tuskegee
Experiment, has led African Americans to be more distrustful of doctors and less likely
to use healthcare services, contributing to the higher mortality rare. 56
In the 1980s, the increase in the Black mortality rate also corresponded with the
decreased funding for hospitals that predominantly served the African American
community. State aid declined dramatically, particularly with the economic recession.
The number of Black hospitals rapidly plummeted as a result. From 1961 to 1988, fortynine
Black hospitals closed, including Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first Blackoperated
hospital in the country. 57
CONCLUSION
Health inequality persists in America. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention
found that African Americans have a significantly shorter life expectancy (75.1 years)
than Whites (78.7). African Americans suffer from higher rates of illness and health
problems; the CDC estimates that 13.6% of African Americans are in poor health
compared to 9.5% of Whites. The overall mortality rate has dropped for all races in the
past two decades, driven by declining deaths from cancer, heart attacks, and strokes.
56
Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical
Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (Norwell, MA:
Anchor, 2008).
57
Mitchell F. Rice and Woodrow Jones, Public Policy and the Black Hospital: From
Slavery to Segregation to Integration (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group,
1994), 101.