Becker Library’s newest exhibit, In Their Own Words: Stories of Desegregation at Washington University Medical Center, highlights the experiences of Black people and their allies who faced institutional racism and fought for change at Washington University School of Medicine and its associated hospitals. Drawing on oral histories, letters, photos, architectural plans, and other documents, the exhibit features stories from doctors, nurses, students, and administrators who experienced segregation and advocated for change.
The exhibit is located in the Glaser Gallery on the seventh floor of Becker Library.
But there’s so much more to these stories than we could include in the exhibit! Check out the following resources to learn more about some of the people featured in the exhibit and discover more stories of Black excellence. The list also includes resources on topics such as segregation and racism in St. Louis, and the intersection of race and medicine.
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Listen
Podcasts and Radio Segments
Broken Heart Park
99% Invisible, Episode 480, March 8, 2022.
On the eminent domain seizure of the land and home of Howard Phillip Venable, MD.
Ezelle Sanford III and Virvus Jones: The Homer G. Phillips Hospital Story
St. Louis Speaks Podcast, Episode 21, July 25, 2018.
Some Doctors Want to Change How Race Is Used in Medicine
Science Friday, June 10, 2022.
Systemic Racism & Health Disparities ft. Dr. Jason Purnell
Under the Arch Podcast, Episode 7, September 20, 2019.
Read
Articles and Reports
Aaron Brink-Johnson, MPA, and Judy Lubin, PhD, MPH
Structural Racism in St. Louis: Facts, Figures, and Opportunities for Advancing Racial Equity
Center for Urban and Racial Equity, August 16, 2020.
Jeannette Cooperman
The Story of Segregation in St. Louis
St. Louis Magazine, October 17, 2014.
Rosalind Early
First in Class
Washington Magazine, December 7, 2015.
On the life and legacy of James L. Sweatt, III, MD.
Matthew L. Edwards
Race, Policing, and History — Remembering the Freedom House Ambulance Service
New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 384, no. 15 (2021): pages 1386-1389.
Jaclyn Kirouac-Fram
‘To Serve the Community Best’: Reconsidering Black Politics in the Struggle to Save Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis, 1976-1984
Journal of Urban History, vol. 36, no. 5 (2010): pages 594-616.
Amy M. Pfeiffenberger
Democracy at Home: The Struggle to Desegregate Washington University in the Postwar Era
Gateway Heritage, Winter 1989: pages 14-25.
Use Interlibrary Loan or contact the Missouri Historical Society Library at library@mohistory.org for access.
Mary Poluski
Medical Career Based on Blue Note, Not Bank Note
Outlook Magazine, Winter 1979: pages 2-5.
Feature on Howard Phillip Venable, MD.
James Singer and Ellen Kunkelmann
Reckoning in Creve Coeur: Venable Park
Gateway Magazine, Spring 2020: pages 7-17.
Jarrhet M. Whittico and Joi S. Whittico
Dr. James M. Whittico Jr.: Trailblazing Surgeon and Community Advocate
History Happens Here: Digital Storytelling from the Missouri Historical Society, February 25, 2020.
Read more stories on local Black history at the Missouri Historical Society.
Books
David Chanoff and Louis W. Sullivan
We’ll Fight It Out Here: A History of the Ongoing Struggle for Health Equity
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022.
Merlin Chowkwanyun
All Health Politics Is Local: Community Battles for Medical Care and Environmental Health
University of North Carolina Press, 2022.
Pricilla A. Dowden-White
Groping Toward Democracy: African American Social Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1910-1949
University of Missouri Press, 2011.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Gerald Early, editor
Ain’t But a Place: An Anthology of African American Writings about St. Louis
Missouri Historical Society Press, 1998.
Also available as an electronic resource.
Vanessa Northington Gamble
Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945
Oxford University Press, 1995.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Vivian Gibson
The Last Children of Mill Creek
Belt Publishing, 2020.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Vida “Sister” Goldman Prince
That’s the Way It Was: Stories of Struggle, Survival and Self-Respect in Twentieth-Century Black St. Louis
The History Press, 2013.
Colin Gordon
Citizen Brown: Race, Democracy, and Inequality in the St. Louis Suburbs
University of Chicago Press, 2019.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Darlene Clark Hine
Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950
Indiana University Press, 1989.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Amanda L. Izzo and Benjamin Looker, editors
Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s
University of Missouri Press, 2022.
Includes the chapter “‘Save Homer G. Phillips and All Public Hospitals’: African American Grassroots Activism and the Decline of Municipal Public Healthcare in St. Louis” by Ezelle Sanford III.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Candace O’Connor
Climbing the Ladder, Chasing the Dream: The History of Homer G. Phillips Hospital
University of Missouri Press, 2021.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Claude H. Organ, Jr., editor
A Century of Black Surgeons: The USA Experience
Transcript Press, 1987.
Includes the chapter “The St. Louis Story: The Training of Black Surgeons in St. Louis, Missouri” by Frank O. Richards, MD.
Susan M. Reverby
Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945
Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Ryan Schuessler, editor
The St. Louis Anthology
Belt Publishing, 2019.
Features nearly 70 essays written by St. Louis writers, journalists, clerics, poets, and activists.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
Damon Tweedy, MD
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine
Picador, 2015.
Linda Villarosa
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation
Doubleday, 2022.
Thomas J. Ward
Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South
University of Arkansas Press, 2003.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
As told to Doris Wesley; Wiley Price, photographer; Ann Morris, editor
Lift Every Voice and Sing: St. Louis African Americans in the Twentieth Century
University of Missouri Press, 1999.
Features narratives of staff members at Homer G. Phillips Hospital, including James. M. Whittico, Jr., MD.
Nathanial Wesley
Black Hospitals in America: History, Contributions and Demise
NRW Associates Publications, 2010.
Craig Steven Wilder
Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities
Bloomsbury Press, 2013.
Christopher D.E. Willoughby
Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools
University of North Carolina Press, 2022.
Adia Harvey Wingfield.
Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy
University of California Press, 2019.
Also available to the WUSTL community as an electronic resource.
John A. Wright
Discovering African American St. Louis: A Guide to Historic Sites
Missouri Historical Society Press, 2002.
Visit
Museums and Digital Exhibits
#1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis
Missouri Historical Society, circa 2018.
The Griot Museum of Black History
2505 St. Louis Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63106
George B. Vashon Museum of African American History
2223 St. Louis Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63106
Watch
Videos and Lectures
The Divide: Confronting Racism in American Health Care
The Commonwealth Fund, January 21, 2022.
Homer G. Phillips Public Health Lecture and Special Dedication of Nash Way
Washington University School of Medicine, October 25, 2022.
Event honoring Helen E. Nash, MD, and Homer E. Nash, Jr., MD, with a keynote address by Donald M. Suggs, DDS.
Will Ross, MD, MPH
The Socio-cultural Underpinnings of Health Inequity in St. Louis
Washington University School of Medicine, February 24, 2022.
Documentaries
Joyce Fitzpatrick and Brian Shackelford, directors
The Color of Medicine: The Story of Homer G. Phillips Hospital
Vision Films, 2018.
Yance Ford, director
The Color of Care
Smithsonian Channel, 2022.
Chad Freidrichs, director
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Unicorn Stencil, 2011.
Available to the WUSTL community via Kanopy.