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):

Racism in medicine.

Racism against Black people.

Psychiatric hospitals--History.

Mentally ill--Care--History.

African Americans--Mental health.

African Americans--Mental health services.

Psychiatric hospitals--Southern States--History.

Psychiatric hospitals.

Mentally ill--Care--Southern States--History.

Mentally ill.

Racism against Black people--Southern States--History.

Racism in medicine--Southern States--History.

African Americans--Mental health--Southern States--History.

African Americans.

African Americans--Mental health services--Southern States--History.

Southern States.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (342 pages): illustrations (black and white) ;

Edition:

1st ed.

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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Prologue: Mrs. Hurston's Letter

Creating Jim Crow in the Asylum. Promoting Mental Health at the Tuskegee Institute ; Enabling Segregation ; Diagnosing Difference

Performing Jim Crow in the Asylum. Negotiating Daily Life ; Exposing Segregated Snake Pits

Ending Jim Crow in the Asylum. Planning Community Mental Health ; Mobilizing Grassroots Activism ; Enforcing Civil Rights

Aftermath: Mrs. Forster's Letter

Appendix 1. Power and Politics in the Psychiatric Archives

Appendix 2. Theorizing the History of "Black Madness."

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-4696-8921-9

1-4696-8922-7

OCLC:

1561138055

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access