Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.8, 2014

Blacks in the American South and the Tuskegee Study of the 1930s

(Abstract)

Huang Wenling

The Tuskegee Study (1932-1972) was an infamous medical study conducted by the United States Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in black patients. In a situation where medical resources had long been scarce and segregation was in force, the black patients and medical and nursing staff had their own reasons for participating in the study. They firmly believed that the only way to get medical care and break down medical segregation was to take part in the Tuskegee Study, a mode of thinking that can be traced back to Booker T. Washington’s tradition of compromise and “National Black Health Week.” The black medical and nursing staff thought the study was a process whereby new scientific knowledge would be discovered and believed their cooperation and participation would improve black health; they also saw it as an opportunity for black patients to enter the government medical system. The patients’ thirst for medical care and the hopes of medical staff enabled the study to continue for forty years.