Black History Month

RBG Street Scholars Think Tank's Purpose:
This Educational Program and Research Project is Dedicated to Further Building the Hip Hop--Black Liberation Movement Connection by Integrating Conscious Digital Edutainment with A Scholarly Self Directed Learning Environment.

"BLACK HISTORY MONTH IS 24/7/365": 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
Of All the Disciplines of Study History Is Best Qualified To Reward All Research.

There is no true separation between the past, the present and the future. Those who don't change change will be change by change. Help us continue to write our history in real time by making a contribution.
Please be sure to follow the curriculum format in your contributions.

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By Daryl Michael Scott
for ASALH at www.asalh.org
The story of Black History Month begins a decade after the founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. When he conceived of the ASALH in 1915, Carter G. Woodson believed that publishing scientific history about the black race would produce facts that would prove to the world that Africa and its people had played a crucial role in the development of civilization. As a Harvard-trained historian, Woodson, like W. E. B. Du Bois before him, believed that the truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice. He thus established a scholarly journal, The Journal of Negro History, a year after he formed the Association. Scientific history, he believed, would counter racial falsehoods, and the community of white scholars would alter its view of the black race. Eventually the truth would trickle down to the public, and the race problem would gradually disappear.

A decade into his labors, Woodson began to think differently about the inherent power of scholarship, the importance of the scholarly community in promoting the truth, and the place of the community in the Association's mission. Scholarship had not transformed race relations, and most white historians had not come to recognize the truth when it was placed before them.

As early as 1920, Woodson had urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. That year he prodded his fraternity brothers at Omega Psi Phi to take up the work.

In 1924 they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week. By 1925, Woodson decided that the Association had to expand its program. Henforth it would be an organization dedicated to discovering and popularizing the truth. The Association had to re~educate blacks as well as whites, and its doors had to be opened to all interested in history, not just historians and other scholars.

When the Association announced Negro History Week for 1926, Woodson was overwhelmed by the response. Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive whites, not simply white scholars and philanthropists, stepped forward to endorse the effort. Woodson and the Association scrambled
to meet the demands of public history. For teachers, the Association published photographs and portraits of important black people. It published plays to dramatize black history. To serve the desire of history buffs to participate in the re~education of black folks, ASNLH formed branches to bring them into the organization.

Woodson selected the week of February that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two giants in the history of African Americans. Lincoln, of course, had issued the Emancipation Proclamation that moved the nation away from slavery, and Frederick Douglass had been the greatest leader of African Americans. Symbolically, the selection of Lincoln's and Douglass' birthdays as the week to study Black history reflected Woodson's belief that the history of African Americans was American history.

When Woodson passed in 1950, the Association continued the celebration of Negro History Week. By the time of his death, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration. At mid~century, in cities across the country, mayors issued proclamations noting Negro History Week.

The Black Awakening of the 1960s dramatically expanded the consciousness of African Americans about the importance of black history. The Freedom Schools established during the civil rights era all included the study of Black history. As African Americans entered into mainstream colleges, they demanded Black Studies and Black history became a central feature. Increasingly there were cries for more than a week to study Black history.

The Association, the center of the study of Black life and history, underwent its own changes, including a recognition of the need to devote more time to Black History. In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association held the first Black History Month. By this time, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the drama of the American
story. Since then all American presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike have issued Black History Month proclamations.

In keeping with tradition, the Association, now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, believes that Black history, like American history, should be studied 365 days a year. Yet as the Founders of Black History Month, ASALH continues to view February as the critical month for carrying forth the mission.
By Daryl Michael Scott
for ASALH at www.asalh.org

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OUR STORY IN BRIEF! The Relationship Between America, Blacks, Health and Medicine

Written by RBGStreetScholar on

By: Marc Imhotep Cray, M.D.

(bna RBG Street Scholar)
Founding Director: Office of Medical Education

Institute for Minority Physicians of the Future (IMPF)

The Institute for Minority Physicians of the Future: Mission,Vision and Core Strategy

IMPF Mission Statement THE INSTITUTE FOR MINORITY PHYSICIANS OF THE FUTURE is a collective voice of African American, Native American, Hispanic American and progressive European American physicians and medical scientists. IMPF believes that the root cause of minority under-representation in United States medical schools is academic disadvantag e borne by lack of access to high-quality high school and college preparation. Consequently, IMPF mission is to become a leading organizational force... Read Full Story

Imhotep Virtual Medical School and It's Physician Tutors' Profile: In Pursuit of Academic Excellence

http://ivms.blogspot.com/ Marc Imhotep Cray is a Physician (UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School),Pharmacy School trained Pharmacologist / Analytical Chemist, Addiction Medicine Specialist, Basic Medical Sciences (BMS) & Black Studies Master Teacher, Medical Infomatics Expert, Webmaster, Medical & Afrikan-Centered Educatio n Researcher and RBG Street Scholar in Evolution. ·He is formerly Director of Office of Medical Education American International School of Medicine-Georgetown, Guyana... Read Full Story

http://ivms.blogspot.com/

OUR STORY IN BRIEF!
The Relationship Between America, Blacks, Health and Medicine

Health disparities across racial and ethnic groups in the United States have been well documented for over a century. These disparities have remained remarkably persistent in spite of the changes in many facets of the society over that period. Despite dramatic improvements in overall health status for the U.S. population in the 20th century, members of many African- American populations experience worse health along many dimensions compared with the majority white population (1). Because many minority neighborhoods have a shortage of physicians (2) and less access to medical care, increasing the supply of minority physicians has been proposed as an intervention that may help to ameliorate differences in health status...cont. reading after video intro

RBG On Socioeconomic Status, Race and Health

Link to the Narrated Version ( Online PowerPoint) of the above photoStory.

Medical training for African-Americans first became a topic of policy debate in the United States in the context of the post-Civil War south as a way to address the health needs of the African-American community. Disparities between the health status of Whites and African-Americans have been observed throughout American history. In the antebellum South, slave owners documented health problems that threatened productivity, and pointed out health disparities between African-Americans and Whites to reinforce beliefs that “biogenetic inferiority of blacks” justified slavery (3). Conditions in the South after the Civil War were not dissimilar to other post war periods, with many blacks left homeless – refugees in search of a place to live and a way to make a living (4).

Lack of food, water and sanitation exacerbated what had already been extremely poor living conditions. The result was major outbreaks of pneumonia, cholera, diphtheria, small pox, yellow fever and tuberculosis. Yet, very few white physicians were willing to see black patients, and very few African-Americans could afford their fees. The education of African-American physicians and other health professionals was seen as a necessary step to improve the health of Blacks and to protect the public health of the communities where African-Americans lived, primarily in the South. African-American medical schools were founded to address this need. Against the backdrop of sociostructural and institutional racism and legal segregation, Flexnor (5) echoed both social justice and public health arguments for training black physicians in his famous report, with the underlying assumption that the best way to meet the great health needs of black communities in the United States was by providing more black physicians. His recommendation was to concentrate resources on two black medicals schools (out of seven) that he believed had the best chance of meeting the standards being set for modern medical training programs, Howard and Meharry. The preface to his recommendation reflects the tension between the societal goals for improving access to care by training more black physicians, while simultaneously maintaining an unstated goal and trend of restricting entry of blacks into the profession (6). As recently as 1965, only 2% of all medical students were black, and three-fourths of these students attended Howard or Meharry.

The human rights and civil rights movements, the assassination of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., , and a rash of urban riots and uprisings woke many White Americans up. And academic medicine was one the first to respond to the wake-up call. Dr Jordan Cohn, AAMC President, in his “Bridging the Gap” address, explains the consequences of these sociopolitical events most eloquently.

“This brought about a significant rise in admissions of minorities to medical schools. This wasn’t because of scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, grade-point averages and Medical College Admission Test scores of minorities suddenly skyrocketing. Rather, academic medicine began to take affirmative action to increase racial, ethnic and gender diversity in medical school classes. Enrollment of underrepresented minorities in U.S. medical schools rose rapidly to about 8% of all matriculants by early 1970. Then progress stalled in the mid 1970s, with admissions remaining flat for the next 15 years. To make matters worse, the fraction of individuals from the same groups in the U.S. population that were underrepresented in medicine continued to grow during this period¾minority populations increasing from 16% in 1975 to 19% in 1990.”

(Source: www.AAMC.org Dr Jordan Cohn’s AAMC President / Bridging the Gap)"

"Increasing diversity of physicians might decrease disparities in health by three separate pathways"

The first pathway is through the practice choices of minority physicians, which may lead to increased access to care in underserved communities. Since BFM MS the 1970s and 1980s, when minority students were first admitted to medical schools in large numbers, a number of studies have examined the practice patterns of minority physicians compared with white physicians. Despite their differences, empirical analyses regarding the practice location and patient population of minority physicians have been remarkable consistent. Minority physicians tend to be more likely to practice in underserved areas and to have patient population with a higher percentage of minorities then their white colleague (7-9). Evidence also suggest that minority physicians tend to have a higher percentage of patient populations with lower incomes and worse health status and who are more likely to be covered by Medicaid (10-13).
The second pathway is through improvement in the quality of health care due to better physician – patient communication and greater cultural competency. The foundation of this hypothesis is that med for many minority patients, having a minority physician my lead to better health care because minority physicians may communicate better and provide more culturally appropriate care to minority patients. If minority physicians provide high-quality care to minority patients along the interpersonal dimensions of care, including doctor-patient communications and cultural competence, this could result in higher patient trust and satisfaction. This may in turn facilitate better health outcomes (14-21).

BFM MS The third pathway by which increasing diversity in the health professions might serve to decrease health disparities is through improvements in the quality of medical education that may accrue to medial students as a result of increasing diversity in medical training. This would expose physicians-in-training to a wide range of different perspectives and cultural backgrounds among their colleagues in medical school, residency and in practice. Such exposure may provide physicians with experiences and interactions that will broaden their interpersonal skills and help in their interactions with patients (22).At the same time minority populations are increasing, data from the American Association of Medical Colleges show a marked decline in the number of African-Americans and Hispanics admitted to medical schools (23). These declines coincided with two significant events. First, in 1995, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Hopwood v. Texas, struck down as unconstitutional an affirmative action program that had been placed in the University of Texas law school. In doing so, the court effectively precluded higher education institutions as well as other entities in the Fifth Circuit, which cover Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, from taking race or ethnicity into account in the admissions process. Secondly, the Regents of the University of California banned the use of race as a factor in admissions. With the passage of Proposition 209, public higher education institutions in California are no longer free to consider race, ethnicity or gender in admissions decisions, in recruiting programs, or even in planning and implementing minority-targeted outreach activities, such as tutoring programs and educational enrichment courses. California, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, these four states alone contain 35% of the minority population that remain underrepresented among medical students, and 75% of those from the Mexican-American community.

REFERENCES

1. Kington, R.S., & Nickens, H.W. (2001) Racial and ethnic differences in health: Recent trends, current patterns, and future directions. In America becoming: Racial trends and their consequences, NJ Smelser, WJ Wilson, and F Mitchell. (Eds). Washington, DC, National Academy Press.

2. Komaromy, M.; Grumbach, K., et al. (1996). The role of black and Hispanic physicians in providing health care for underserved populations. New England Journal of Medicine; 334, pp. 1305-1310.

3. Savitt, L. (1985). Black health on the plantation: masters, slaves and physicians. In Sickness and health in America, J. Leavitt & R. Numbers (Eds.) University of Wisconsin Press.

4. Summerville, J. Educating Black Doctors: a History of Meharry Medical College. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1983.

5. Flexnor, A. (1910). Medical Education in the United States and Canada. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Merrymount Press: Boston, MA.

5. Starr, P. The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic Books, 1982.

7. Rocheleau, B. (1978). Black physicians an ambulatory care. Public Health Reports; 93(3):278282.

8. Lloyd, S.M., & Johnson, D.G. (1982). Practice patterns of black physicians: Results of a survey of Howard University College of Medicine Alumni. Journal of the National Medical Association; 74(2), pp. 129-141.

9. Keith, S.N.; Bell, R.M., et al. (1985). Effects of affirmative action in medical schools: A study of the class of 1975. New England Journal of Medicine; 313, pp. 1519-1525.

10. Davidson, R.C., & Lewis E.L. (1997). Affirmative action and other special consideration admissions at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. JAMA; 278(14), pp. 1153-1158.

11. Moy, E.; Bartman, B.A.; & Weir, M.R. (1995). Access to hypertensive care. Effects of income, insurance, and source of care. Archives of Internal Medicine; 155(14), pp. 1497-1502.

12. Cantor, J.C.; Miles, E.L., et al. (1996). Physician service to the underserved: Implications for affirmative action in medical education. Inquiry, summer; 33, pp. 167-180.

13. Gray, B. Stoddard, J.J. (1997). Patient-physician pairing: Does racial and ethnic congruity influence the selection of a regular physician? Journal of Community Health; 22(4), pp. 247-259.

14. Department of Health and Human Services OOMH. (2000). Office of Minority Health national standards on culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) in health care. Federal Register; 65(247).

15. Lavizzo-Mourey, R., & Mackenzie, E.R. (1996). Cultural competence: Essential measurements of quality for managed care organizations. Annals of Internal Medicine; 124, pp. 919-921.

16. Coleman, M.T., Lott, J.A., & Sharma, S. (2000). Use of continuous quality improvement to identify barriers in the management of hypertension. 17. American Journal of Medical Quality; 15(2) pp. 72-77.

17. Chinman, M.J.; Rosencheck, R.A.; & Lam, J.A. (2000). Client-case manager racial matching in program for homeless persons with serious mental illness. Psychiatric Services; 51(10):1265-1272.

18. Rosenbeck, R., Fontana, A., & Cottrol, C. (1995). Effect of clinician-veteran racial pairing in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry; 152(4), pp. 5550-5563.

19. Thom, D.H., Ribisl, K.M., Stewart, A.L., et al. Further validation and reliability testing of the trust in physician scale. Medical Care; 37(5), pp. 510-517.

20. Saha, S., Komaromy, M. et al. (1999). Patient-physician racial concordance and the perceived quality and use of health care. Archives of Internal Medicine; 159, pp. 997-1004.

21. Morales, L.S., Cunningham, W.E., & Brown, J.A. et al. (1999). Are Latinos less satisfied with communication by health care providers? Journal of General Internal Medicine; 14, pp. 409-417.

22. Rathore, S.S.; Lenert, L.A. et al. (2000). The effects of patient sex and race on medical students’ ratings of quality life. American Journal of Medicine, 108(7), pp. 561.566.

23. www.AAMC.org.

For further study and research see:

IVMS Required Textbook

American Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine, and Health Care in the United States.

IVMS is a product of IMPF, see post below

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