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Jim Crow in the asylum : psychiatry and civil rights in the American South / Kylie M. Smith.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Smith, Kylie, 1968- Author.
- Series:
- Studies in social medicine http://id.loc.gov/resources/hubs/49c16727-5e2f-ceda-854e-68f4608f8392
- Studies in social medicine
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- African Americans--Mental health services--Southern States--History.
- African Americans.
- African Americans--Mental health--Southern States--History.
- Racism in medicine--Southern States--History.
- Racism in medicine.
- Racism against Black people--Southern States--History.
- Racism against Black people.
- Mentally ill--Care--Southern States--History.
- Mentally ill.
- Psychiatric hospitals--Southern States--History.
- Psychiatric hospitals.
- Mental health services.
- Health services accessibility.
- Mentally ill women.
- Mental Health Services.
- Health Services Accessibility.
- Persons with Psychiatric Disorders.
- people with psychiatric illnesses.
- African Americans--Mental health.
- African Americans--Mental health services.
- Mentally ill--Care.
- Southern States.
- Medical Subjects:
- Mental Health Services.
- Health Services Accessibility.
- Persons with Psychiatric Disorders.
- Genre:
- History
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource.
- Place of Publication:
- Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2026]
- Summary:
- "There is a complicated history of racism and psychiatric healthcare in the Deep South states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The asylums of the Jim Crow era employed African American men and women; served as places of treatment and care for African Americans with psychiatric illnesses; and, inevitably, were places of social control. Black people who lived and worked in these facilities needed to negotiate complex relationships of racism with their own notions of community, mental health, and healing. Kylie M. Smith mixes exhaustive archival research, interviews, and policy analysis to offer a comprehensive look at how racism affected Black Southerners with mental illness during the Jim Crow era. Complicated legal, political, and medical changes in the late twentieth century turned mental health services into a battlefield between political ideology and psychiatric treatment approaches, with the fallout having long-term consequences for patient outcomes. Smith argues that patterns of racially motivated abuse and neglect of mentally ill African Americans took shape during this era and continue to the present day. As the mentally ill become increasingly incarcerated, Jim Crow in the Asylum reminds readers that, for many Black Southerners, having a mental illness was—and still is—tantamount to committing a crime"-- JSTOR.
- Contents:
- Prologue. Mrs. Hurston’s letter
- Promoting mental health at the Tuskegee Institute
- Enabling segregation
- Diagnosing difference
- Negotiating daily life
- Exposing southern snake pits
- Planning community mental health
- Mobilizing grassroots activism
- Enforcing civil rights
- Aftermath. Mrs. F.’s letter.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Online resource; title from PDF title page (JSTOR, viewed February 25, 2026).
- Other Format:
- Print version: Smith, Kylie, 1968- Jim Crow in the asylum
- ISBN:
- 9781469689210
- 1469689219
- 9781469689227
- 1469689227
- OCLC:
- 1561138055
- Publisher Number:
- CIPO000315142
- CIPO000327545
- Access Restriction:
- Some versions: Open access versions available from some providers open access
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