A participant in the Tuskegee syphilis study sits on steps in front of a house in Tuskegee.

The US Once Withheld Syphilis Treatment From Hundreds of Black Men in the Name of Science

The archival trove chronicles the extreme measures administrators took to ensure Black sharecroppers did not receive treatment for the venereal disease.

Stop Blaming Tuskegee, Critics Say. It's Not An 'Excuse' for Current Medical Racism

It's the health inequities of today, not the infamous "Tuskegee Study," that explain many Black people's distrust of the American health system.
Image of one of the victims of the Tuskegee experiment.

AP Exposes the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The 50th Anniversary

Read the original article that unearthed the Tuskegee experiment.
A painting by Alfred Touchemolin showing French army recruits being inoculated with cowpox to protect them from smallpox, circa 1895

The Deep Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy

Understanding the battle over immunization—from the pre-Victorian era onward—between public health and the people may help in treating anti-vax sentiment.
The Pfizer headquarters sign.
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Years of Medical Abuse Make Black Americans Less Likely to Trust the Coronavirus Vaccine

Reckoning with our past is crucial to getting buy-in for the vaccine.

A History of Human Guinea Pigs

Medical science has always had a lax relationship to consent – especially with the marginalized.

Nature's Disastrous ‘Whitewashing’ Editorial

Science's ethos of self-correction should apply to how it thinks about its own history, too.
Collage of Holmesburg Prison aerial view with a gloved hand picking up a medical vial in the foreground.

Holmesburg Prison's Medical Experiments Are Philadelphia's 'Lasting Shame'

For over 20 years, Dr. Albert Kligman experimented on incarcerated men at Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison. Those who profited have yet to redress the harm.
Black and white photo of Pruitt-Igoe buildings being destroyed.

Pruitt-Igoe: A Black Community Under the "Atomic Cloud"

In the 1950s, the U.S. military conducted unethical radiological experiments on Black communities, including the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex.
Troops from the 92nd Infantry Division move past a destroyed Mark VI tank on the outskirts of Ponsacco, Italy, on Sept. 1, 1944.

A Young WWII Soldier’s Remains Could Be Those of Spike Lee’s Lost Cousin

Military experts seeking to identify partial skeleton in an anonymous grave.
Elijah Muhammad, who was then the leader of the Nation of Islam, speaks to a crowd in Chicago in 1966.

What Do the Nation of Islam and Marjorie Taylor Greene Have in Common?

Stuart compares the shared values of Christian nationalists and the Nation of Islam in the 1960's and today.
Illustration after American Gothic but in the context of the Black experience: African American farmers looking away, house foreclosed, lightning in the sky.

How Thousands of Black Farmers Were Forced Off Their Land

Black people own just 2 percent of farmland in the United States. A decades-long history of loan denials at the USDA is a major reason why.
Anthony Brinson, right, talks to a resident in Detroit on May 4 as part of a door-to-door effort to encourage people in the majority-Black city to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. (Paul Sancya/AP)
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Black Americans Have Always Understood Science as a Tool in Their Freedom Struggle

Fixating on Black vaccine skepticism obscures a rich history of Black medical and scientific innovation.
A painted picture of someone receiving a vaccine

History Shows Americans Have Always Been Wary of Vaccines

Even so, many diseases have been tamed. Will Covid-19 be next?

The Civil Rights Era was Supposed to Drastically Change America. It Didn’t.

From covid-19 to the 2020 election, the specter of America’s racist history influences many aspects of our lives.
Image of a Black man wearing a black mask saying "I Can't Breathe"

A History of Anti-Black Racism In Medicine

This syllabus lays groundwork for making questions of race and racism central to studying the histories of medicine and science.

How Racism Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic

For hundreds of years, false theories of “innate difference and deficit in black bodies” have shaped American responses to disease.
Engraving of Reverend Cotton Mather, 1721, surrounded by a crowd.

The Slave Who Helped Boston Battle Smallpox

Like so many black scientists past, the African who brought inoculation to the American colonies never got his due.

6 Myths About the History of Black People in America

Six historians weigh in on the biggest misconceptions about black history, including the Tuskegee experiment and enslaved people’s finances.

UVA and the History of Race: Eugenics, the Racial Integrity Act, Health Disparities

Reflections on the long career of race science at Mr. Jefferson's university.