Desegregating Medicine: Edith Irby Jones, MD, Broke Barriers in All-White Medical Schools in the South.

Houston internist Edith Irby Jones, MD, broke barriers in all-white medical schools in the South and in her hometown of Houston.

"The Living Monument": The Desegregation of Grady Memorial Hospital and the Changing South.

Grady Memorial Hospital is a pillar of public medical and surgical care in the Southeast. The evolution of this institution, both in its physical structure as well as its approach to patient care, mirrors the cultural and social changes that have occurred in the American South. Grady Memorial Hospital opened its doors in 1892 built in the heart of Atlanta's black community. With its separate and unequal facilities and services for black and white patients, the concept of "the Gradies" was born. Virtually, every aspect of care at Grady continued to be segregated by race until the mid-20th century. In 1958, the opening of the "New Grady" further cemented this legacy of the separate "Gradies," with patients segregated by hospital wing. By the 1960s, civil rights activists brought change to Atlanta. The Atlanta Student Movement, with the support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., led protests outside of Grady, and a series of judicial and legislative rulings integrated medical boards and public hospitals. Eventually, the desegregation of Grady occurred with a quiet memo that belied years of struggle: on June 1, 1965, a memo from hospital superintendent Bill Pinkston read "All phases of the hospital are on a non-racial basis, effective today." The future of Grady is deeply rooted in its past, and Grady's mission is unchanged from its inception in 1892: "It will nurse the poor and rich alike and will be an asylum for black and white."

Edith Irby: A Hidden Figure in the History of Medical Education.

Edith Irby entered the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in September 1948, becoming the first African American to desegregate a Southern medical school. Seventy years later, she has become a hidden figure in the history of medical education.The author provides a brief biography of Irby (later Jones) and analyzes the factors that led the University of Arkansas to admit Irby, most notably her scholastic excellence and an innovative legal strategy launched by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to eliminate racial inequalities in graduate and professional education. Irby's admission prompted intensified efforts by medical civil rights activists to desegregate all U.S. medical schools.The author concludes that the 70th anniversary of Irby's groundbreaking accomplishment provides an opportunity to acknowledge her significant contribution to the history of medical education and to recognize the continued need to erase persistent racial inequalities in the physician workforce.

Psychiatric Jim Crow: Desegregation at the Crownsville State Hospital, 1948-1970.

The Crownsville State Hospital, located in Maryland just outside of Annapolis, provides a thought-provoking example of the impact of desegregation in the space of the mental hospital. Using institutional reports, patient records, and oral histories, this article reconstructs the three phases of desegregation at Crownsville. First, as a result of its poor conditions, lack of qualified staff, and its egregious mistreatment of patients, African American community leaders and organizations such as the NAACP called for the desegregation of the care staff of Crownsville in the late 1940s. Second, the introduction of a skilled African American staff created unprecedented and morally complex issues about access to psychiatric therapeutics. Last, in 1963, Health Commissioner Dr. Isadore Tuerk officially desegregated patients in all Maryland state hospitals. Though desegregation brought much needed improvements to Crownsville, these gains were ultimately swamped by deinstitutionalization and the shift towards outpatient psychiatric care. By the 1970s, Crownsville had returned to the poor conditions that existed during segregation.