Black Physicians and the Struggle for Civil Rights: Lessons from the Mississippi Experience

The roles of black physicians in the South in the period leading up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have not been fully disclosed. In Mississippi and elsewhere in the South, it is a story of disenfranchised professionals who risked life, limb, and personal success to improve the lot of those they served. This first of 2 articles on the subject provides an overview of the forces for and against the struggle for civil rights and social justice in medicine in the South. We use newly available data from Mississippi as a prime example. An understanding of these forces is essential to an understanding of medical education and medical practice in this period and helps explain why the South remains in last place in most indicators of health today.