BODY AND SOUL This page intentionally left blank BODY AND SOUL THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY AND THE FIGHT AGAINST MEDICAL DISCRIMINATION Alondra Nelson University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Copyright 2011 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elec- tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nelson, Alondra, author. Body and soul : the Black Panther Party and the fight against medical discrimination / Alondra Nelson. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8166-7648-4 (hc : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8166-7649-1 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Minorities—Medical care—United States. 2. Discrimination in medical care— United States. 3. Race discrimination—United States. 4. Black Panther Party. I. Title. RA448.5.N4N45 2011 362.1089'96073—dc23 2011040833 Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer. 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For my parents This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS preface: politics by other means ix abbreviations xvii Introduction: Serving the People Body and Soul 1 1. African American Responses to Medical Discrimination before 1966 23 2. Origins of Black Panther Party Health Activism 49 3. The People’s Free Medical Clinics 75 4. Spin Doctors: The Politics of Sickle Cell Anemia 115 5. A s American as Cherry Pie: Contesting the Biologization of Violence 153 Conclusion: Race and Health in the Post–Civil Rights Era 181 acknowledgments 189 notes 197 index 259 This page intentionally left blank PREFACE Politics by Other Means H ealth is politics by other means.1 Milestones in health and medicine are conveyed as bearing on the broadest political and social ideals. The recent tenth anniver- sary of the decoding of the human genome, for example, brought with it cautious hope for the progression of genetic science from the lab bench to the bedside. This scientific landmark was notably accompanied by then president Bill Clinton’s proclamation that this feat had established “our common humanity.”2 Health is also deemed to embody conceptions of the good society. In 2010 the administration of President Barack Obama ushered in his- toric healthcare reform with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. At the time of its passage, this legislation marked the most sweep- ing changes in U.S. health policy since the establishment of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. The Affordable Care Act, which promised to ex- tend medical benefits and coverage to tens of millions of previously un- insured and underinsured Americans, was passed despite heated parti- san debates redolent of the political battles over health policy of the late 1960s. The controversy that preceded (and then followed) the imple- mentation of the act concerned far more than bodily well- being. Under- lying the impassioned back-a nd-f orths that pitted accusations of “social- ized medicine,” “government takeovers,” and “death panels” against assertions of “a right to health” and the ethics of “universal health care” [ ix ]