Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-kwt9d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T11:01:16.598Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Let Down Your Bucket Where You Are”

The Afro-American Hospital and Black Health Care in Mississippi, 1924-1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

David T. Beito and
Linda Royster Beito
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Under the burden of Jim Crow, how did African Americans obtain health care? For nearly 40 years the Afro-American Hospital of Yazoo City, Mississippi, was a leading health care supplier for blacks in the Mississippi Delta. It was founded in 1928 by the Afro-American Sons and Daughters, a black fraternal society, and provided a wide range of medical services. The society, which eventually had 35,000 members, was led by Thomas J. Huddleston, a prosperous black entrepreneur and advocate of Booker T. Washington’s self-help philosophy. The hospital had a low death rate compared to other hospitals that served blacks in the South during the period. It ceased operation in 1966 as a fraternal entity after years of increasingly burdensome regulation, competitive pressure from government and third-party health care alternatives, and the migration of younger dues-paying blacks to the North.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 30 , Issue 4: The Persistence of the Health Insurance Dilemma , Winter 2006, pp. 551 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2006 

References

Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1926) “Work of state organizers.” August.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927a) “Digging in, or training.” October.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927b) “Editorial: Our platform.” October.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927c) “Grand lecturer’s report.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927d) “Greenville lodge, no. 1.” December.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927e) “Juvenile mothers.” October.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927f) “No parallel in history.” October.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1927g) “The Afro-American Sons and Daughters Hospital.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1928a) “Dedication program for our new hospital.” November-December.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1928b) “Linen shower contributions.” November-December.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1934a) “Hospitals and their purposes.” April.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1934b) “New ideas as well as a new deal.” July.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1934c) “The Afro-American Sons and Daughters, or the gift to humanity.” January.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1935a) “Afro-American Sons and Daughters Hospital annex under construction.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1935b) “New information.” March.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1935c) “Our new student nurses.” July.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1936a) “In our hospital.” May.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1936b) “In our hospital.” July.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1937a) “Custodian’s letter.” May.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1937b) “In our hospital.” May.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1937c) “In our hospital.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1937d) “Proclamation.” September.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1938a) “Sir Knights and Daughters hold annual meeting.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1938b) “Why we give festivals.” May.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1939a) “Another scene of the parade.” September.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1939b) “Dr. Miller to hold examination clinic.” March.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1939c) “Telegrams.” September.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1940) “In our hospital.” July.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1941a) “Century Burial branch at Columbus gets new deluxe ambulance.” January.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1941b) “In our hospital.” November.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1944) Annual report. April.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1957) “$1000 raised at celebration on hospital day.” May.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1962) “Hospital news.” April.Google Scholar
Afro-American Courier (Yazoo City, MS) (1963) “Hospital news.” February.Google Scholar
Afro-American Sons and Daughters (AASD) Hospital (1931–35) Patient Register, micro-film roll 36321. Afro-American Hospital (Yazoo City, MS) Records, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson.Google Scholar
Arkansas Gazette (1990) “Webb’s contributions can’t be measured.” February 18.Google Scholar
Bardifield, S. L., and Harris, T. H. (1929) Letter to the editor. Afro-American Courier, April 1.Google Scholar
Barnes, Emma L. (1995) Interview with author, September 9.Google Scholar
Beardsley, Edward H. (1987) History of Neglect: Health Care for Blacks and Mill Workers in the Twentieth-Century South. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Beito, David T. (2000) From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Brooks, Charles (1971 [1902]) The Official History and Manual of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries.Google Scholar
Brown, Elsa Barkley (1989) “Womanist consciousness: Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of Saint Luke.” Signs 14: 610–33.Google Scholar
Century Voice (Yazoo City, MS) (1942a) “Facts about the Century Burial Association.” August.Google Scholar
Century Voice (Yazoo City, MS) (1942b) “Gets vote of confidence.” September.Google Scholar
Century Voice (Yazoo City, MS) (1942c) “Resigned and promoted.” August.Google Scholar
Century Voice (Yazoo City, MS) (1943) “Tabor leads them all!” November.Google Scholar
Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS) (2005) “First black fraternal hospital in Miss. should be museum.” January 25.Google Scholar
Coleman, Janice (1995) “The open door of that little hospital in Mound Bayou.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Mississippi, Oxford.Google Scholar
Curry, Leonard P. (1981) The Free Black in Urban America, 1800–1850: The Shadow of the Dream. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Endowment, Duke (1932) Annual Report of the Hospital Section for 1931. Charlotte, NC: Duke Endowment.Google Scholar
Endowment, Duke (1933) Annual Report of the Hospital Section for 1932. Charlotte, NC: Duke Endowment.Google Scholar
Endowment, Duke 1934) Annual Report of the Hospital Section for 1933. Charlotte, NC: Duke Endowment.Google Scholar
Endowment, Duke (1935) Annual Report of the Hospital Section for 1934. Charlotte, NC: Duke Endowment.Google Scholar
Endowment, Duke (1936) Annual Report of the Hospital Section for 1935. Charlotte, NC: Duke Endowment.Google Scholar
Ebony, (1950) “Delta doctor performs 34,000 operations.” March 5, 27–29.Google Scholar
Fahey, David M. (1994) The Black Lodge in White America: “True Reformer” Browne and His Economic Strategy. Dayton, OH: Wright State University Press.Google Scholar
Gamble, Vanessa Northington (1995) Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Griggs, Sutton E. (1926) Triumph of the Simple Virtues; or, The Life Story of John L. Webb. Hot Springs, AR: Messenger.Google Scholar
Harrell, Laura D. S. (1973) “Medical services in Mississippi, 1890-1970,” in McElmore, Richard (ed.) History of Mississippi. Hattiesburg: University and College Press of Mississippi: 554–59.Google Scholar
Huddleston, Thomas J. Jr., (1980) Interview with Barbara Allen, Yazoo City, MS, March 5. Special Collections, Ricks, B. S. Memorial Library, Yazoo City, MS.Google Scholar
Humphreys, Margaret (2001) Malaria: Poverty, Race, and Public Health in the United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, Tera W. (1997) To ’Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor, Mississippi Jurisdiction (c. 1942) Souvenir Edition: Celebrating the Opening of the Hospital of the Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Milburn Crowe Collection, City Hall, Mound Bayou, MS.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Claude F. (1988) “Benevolent societies of New Orleans blacks during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Louisiana History 29: 21–33.Google Scholar
Lindsey, Willeva (1980) Interview with Barbara Allen, Yazoo City, MS, March 5. Special Collections, Ricks, B. S. Memorial Library, Yazoo City, MS.Google Scholar
McBride, David (2002) Missions for Science: U. S. Technology and Medicine in America’s African World. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Mississippi Hospital Licensing Agency (1966) Minutes, July 11. File on Taborian Hospital, Records of the Mississippi Commission on Hospital Care, Charles W. Capps Jr. Archives and Museum, Delta State University, Cleveland, MS.Google Scholar
Mississippi Insurance Department (1963) Annual Report. Jackson: State of Mississippi.Google Scholar
Muraskin, William A. (1975) Middle-Class Blacks in a White Society: Prince Hall Freemasonry in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Polk, R. L. (1923) Polk’s Hot Springs [Arkansas] Directory. Kansas City, MO: Polk.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda, and Lynn Oser, Jennifer (2004) “Organization despite adversity: The origins and development of African American fraternal associations.” Social Science History 28: 367–437.Google Scholar
Starr, Paul (1982) The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Taborian Star (Greenville, MS) (1942) “Formal opening of the Taborian Hospital.” March.Google Scholar
Thomas, Jesse O. (1926) “A fraternal organization with social vision.” Opportunity 4: 384–85.Google Scholar
Trotter, Joe W. (2004) “African American fraternal associations in American history.” Social Science History 28: 355–66.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1932) Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Population, vol. 3, pt. 1, Alabama-Missouri. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1970) Hill-Burton Project Register: Hospital and Medical Facility Projects Approved under the Hill-Burton Program. Fiscal Year 1970: Summary Data and Listing of Projects Approved. July 1, 1947-June 30, 1970: Summary Data and Complete Listing of Projects Approved. Rockville, MD: Health Facilities Planning and Construction Service, Office of Program Planning and Analysis.Google Scholar
U.S. Public Health Service (1923a) Public Health Reports: State Reports, March 16. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Public Health Service (1923b) Public Health Reports: State Reports, June 8. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Public Health Service (1924a) Public Health Reports: State Reports, April 4. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Public Health Service(1924b) Public Health Reports: State Reports, May 30. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Public Health Service (1924c) Public Health Reports: State Reports, August 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Wailoo, Keith (1997) Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Frank (1929) Memorandum regarding request for assistance in Mound Bayou, Miss., September 14. Folder 5, box 249, Julius Rosenwald Papers, Fisk University, Nashville, TN.Google Scholar
Walker, Harry J. (1937) “Negro benevolent societies in New Orleans: A study of their structure, function, and membership.” MA thesis, Fisk University.Google Scholar
Walls, Edwina (1986) “Some extinct black hospitals of Little Rock and Pulaski County.” Pulaski County Historical Review 34: 4–8.Google Scholar
Walwyn, Cyril A. (1980) Interview with Barbara Allen, Yazoo City, MS, March 26. Special Collections, B. S. Ricks Memorial Library, Yazoo City, MS.Google Scholar