Body and soul [electronic resource] : the Black Panther Party and the fight against medical discrimination / Alondra Nelson.
2011
RA448.5.N4 N45 2011eb
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Title
Body and soul [electronic resource] : the Black Panther Party and the fight against medical discrimination / Alondra Nelson.
Author
Nelson, Alondra.
ISBN
9780816678754 (electronic book)
9780816676491
9780816676484
9780816676491
9780816676484
Imprint
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2011.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xviii, 289 p.)
Call Number
RA448.5.N4 N45 2011eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
362.1089/96073
Summary
Between its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. The Black Panthers are most often remembered for their revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. Here the author recovers a lesser known aspect of the organization's broader struggle for social justice: health care. The Black Panther Party's health activism, its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness about genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination, was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also a recognition that poor blacks were both underserved by mainstream medicine and overexposed to its harms. Drawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, she argues that the Party's focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers' People's Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent. The Black Panther Party's understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. That legacy and that struggle continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Access limited to authorized users.
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Description based on print version record.
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Body and soul.
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Table of Contents
Introduction : serving the people body and soul
African American responses to medical discrimination before 1966
Origins of Black Panther Party health activism
The people's free medical clinics
Spin doctors : the politics of sickle cell anemia
As American as cherry pie : contesting the biologization of violence
Conclusion : race and health in the post-civil rights era.
African American responses to medical discrimination before 1966
Origins of Black Panther Party health activism
The people's free medical clinics
Spin doctors : the politics of sickle cell anemia
As American as cherry pie : contesting the biologization of violence
Conclusion : race and health in the post-civil rights era.