Medical Apartheid: Black Patients Excluded from Hospitals or Confined to Basements

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Black patients were excluded from most American hospitals or confined to segregated 'colored' wards, often in basements. Black physicians were barred from joining the American Medical Association and therefore from hospital admitting privileges. In 1926, only 124 hospitals admitted Black patients at all. Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Harlem Hospital were among the few institutions where Black physicians could train and practice. The consequences were measurable: Black maternal and infant mortality rates were double white rates. Dr. Louis Wright fought for Black physicians' hospital access in New York through the 1920s.