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Jim Crow in the Asylum

Psychiatry and Civil Rights in the American South

The Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 60's sought to end racial segregation in all U.S. public institutions, including hospitals. Psychiatric hospitals became political battlegrounds over segregation and patients' rights, setting the scene for disparities that continue today.


This project explores the process of desegregation and deinstitutionalization in state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. It draws on original records, court cases and personal testimony to expose the racist ideas that underpinned the treatment of African Americans with mental illness and saw psychiatric hospitals used as dumping grounds for some of the south's most vulnerable people.


The result of this research will become a book published by UNC Press, available in both paper and digital Open Access format. You will be able to read that book here, and the online text will include video, audio and imagery that I collect along the way.


In the meantime, you can follow my progress through the Texts and Resources below. I look forward to sharing this forgotten history with you.



Dr Kylie M. Smith
Associate Professor
Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow for Nursing and the Humanities
Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.
kylie.m.smith@emory.edu

This project is supported by the National Library of Medicine (NIH)
G13 Award 1G13LM013010-01A1

Project Hero Cover

Image: "Court for Women, showing group of patients" Searcy Hospital, Mt Vernon, Alabama, 1954. Courtesy University of Alabama Birmingham.

Texts

Reflections

  • Decision making in digital publishing

    Added May 2020Published
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  • Why I chose Open Access and Manifold.

    Updated December 2019Published
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  • Background to this projectAnd a note on positionality

    Updated December 2019Published
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Supporting Publications

  • NAMI Blog PostDiscrimination and Racism in the History of Mental Health Care

    Updated July 2020Published
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  • How Bigotry Created a Black Mental Health CrisisWashington Post OpEd

    Updated April 2020Published
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  • Backstory Podcast: Another Burden to Bear

    Added November 2020
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  • A Rather Straightforward ProblemUnravelling networks of segregation in Alabama's psychiatric hospitals

    Added November 2020Published
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Resources

Resource Collections

  • Presentations

    Resource Collection
1 Total Collection

Single Resources

  • Link

    “A Rather Straightforward Problem”: Unravelling networks of segregation in Alabama’s Psychiatric Hospitals 1966-1972

  • Link

    Podcast: Another Burden to Bear

  • Video

    Emory Psychiatry Grand Rounds

  • Link

    How Bigotry Created a Black Mental Health Crisis

4 Total Resources

Metadata

  • rights
    CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0
  • rights holder
    Kylie M. Smith
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