Do we want to perpetuate a Jim Crow health system?" A brilliant, idealistic physician asked that question in Alabama in 1966. Her answer was no—it led to her murder. Unearthing the truth of Jean Cowsert's life and death is a central concern of David Barton Smith's Race, Murder, and Medicine. Unearthing the grim history of our healthcare system is another. Race-related disparities in American death rates, exacerbated once again by the Covid-19 pandemic, have persisted since the birth of the modern U.S. medical system a century ago. A unique but fundamentally racist history has prevented the...
Do we want to perpetuate a Jim Crow health system?" A brilliant, idealistic physician asked that question in Alabama in 1966. Her answer was no—it l...
