Mental illnesses The Colored Hospital World Health Organization (WHO) African-Americans were frequently housed in public (as opposed to private) facilities such as the poorhouse, jail or the insane asylum. These facilities almost always had substandard conditions. If conditions in the facility were poor for white patients, conditions were completely inhumane for African-American patients. For instance, one of the first patients admitted to the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum in1829 was a fourteen-year-old slave named Jefferson. Jeffersons name was not recorded in the admission book and he was reportedly housed in the yard. The young slave was admitted as a favor to his owner since the facility did not officially receive blacks. The issue of housing Black and white mental patients in the same facility was a struggle in both Northern and Southern States since many leading mental health experts felt that it undermined the mental health of white patients to be housed with African-Americans. The distress of having Blacks and white patients in close proximity to one another was balanced by the unwillingness to fund segregated facilities for black patients. In March1875, the North Carolina General Assembly appropriated $10, 000 to build a colored insane asylum. The Eastern Asylum for the Colored Insane was opened in1880 with accommodations for four hundred and twenty patients. The facility at Goldsboro underwent several name changes throughout its history and remains in operation as a psychiatric facility. In1925, Junius Wilson, a seventeen-year-old, deaf and mute black man was accused of rape, castrated and remanded for incarceration at Goldsboro by a lunacy jury. The rape charges were eventually dropped in the1970s and at some point authorities realized that Mr. Wilson was neither mentally ill nor retarded-simply hearing impaired. In1994, at the age of 86, Mr. Wilson was moved to a cottage on the grounds of the facility (now known as the Cherry Hospital). The move to the cottage was the states effort to make up for Mr. Wilsons 72-year incarceration. He died there in March of 2001. Virginia established an asylum for the colored insane in Petersburg that received its first patients in April 1885. At that time there were approximately four hundred insane Negroes in the state, all of whom were cared for in the Petersburg facility. Apparently little concern was given to the ability of family and friends throughout the state to visit their loved ones at the facility that was so far from home for so many. The Alabama Insane Hospital was not for the exclusive use of African-Americans, but to accommodate the increasing number of African-American patients, separate facilities were created on the grounds. In1897, Dr. T. O. Powell reported that the Alabama facility had about three hundred and fifty African-American patients. The facility maintained a colony of one hundred African-American men about two miles from the main facility. Dr. Powell noted, They are contented, are the healthiest class of patients under this management and by their farm labor contribute to the support of the institution. It is interesting to note that the positive presentation of the colony farm obscures the reality that the primary treatment provided to these African-American male patients was hard physical labor. It seems odd that individuals who had been incarcerated in an asylum due to their insanity were able perform tasks that must have required some degree of skill and focus. Dr. James Lawrence Thompson, in his memoir of life at the South Carolina State Hospital, noted It was customary to employ as many of the patients as possible-those who were in condition to work-both male and female, white and colored. The white females would make beds, sweep the floors, sew, work in the kitchen and even sweep the yards. The colored females would work on the wards in various ways and in the laundry. The colored males did most of the rough work, such as working on the farm, cutting wood and the like. The white males were somewhat handicapped in their work as it was not customary to have the white and colored males working together and we did not have land enough to have the white males work on the farm, hence they were confined to work mostly in cleaning up the yards and moving trash from about the building. Perhaps patients, both African-American and white, could have benefited more from the restorative power of gainful employment provided in their own communities and with adequate financial compensation. African Black Psychology The state of Maryland opened its hospital for the colored insane in1911near Crownsville, MD. The first patients were composed of12 patients from the Spring Grove facility and112 inmates from jails or other asylums. The inmates, who lived in a temporary camp while they began to clear the land and operate the farm, built the facility. It was noted that Dr. Robert Winterode decided to entrust the patients with axes and tools to complete the construction. Prior to the opening of the Crownsville facility, African-American patients were housed in segregated facilities on other facilities and in local jails. At the turn of the century, African-American males at Marylands Spring Grove facility often spent up to eight months living in tents, made with patient labor, on the grounds. A cottage for African-American females was completed at SpringGrove in1906. In1919, Rusk State Penitentiary in Texas was turned into a hospital for the Negro insane. The facility achieved notoriety when, on April16, 1955, a group of African-American prisoners in the maximum-security unit rebelled and took over the hospital for five hours. The rebellion was led by nineteen-year-old Ben Riley, who articulated inmate demands for better counseling, organized exercise periods, an end to prisoner beatings, and that all inmates have the same rights enjoyed by the white inmates regarding meals, bathing and freedom of movement. The article in the Austin Statesman reflects the power of having control of the media: it stated that the prisoners had no specific complaints, and described Ben Riley as the leader of the gang of criminally insane Negroes and as someone who likes to exhibit his muscles. Readers get the sense that the reporter was barely restraining himself from calling the young leader a big Black buck. The Austin Statesmans article is accompanied by a photo of a shirtless Riley with a caption that notes that the man was pointing to scars on another inmate that were reportedly caused by a beating. Is it possible that Riley was not just taking the opportunity to exhibit his body but was showing his own scars? During the siege, the inmates reportedly hooked the hospital superintendent up to the electroshock machine and attempted to deliver maximum voltage to him. The superintendent escaped injury when the inmates pushed the right button but failed to set the spring correctly. In her well researched book on the Texas State Lunatic Asylum, it is notable that author Sarah Sitton fails to note that Rusk State Hospital was established to serve African-American patients. Sitton is very sympathetic to the plight of attendants dealing with threats of violence from African-American prisoners but shows little concern for the violence perpetrated against African-American inmates. Joe Biden This section is not intended to imply that the only place where African-Americans experienced the psychiatric system was within facilities. The history of institutional-based treatment is simply better documented than other interventions provided to-or abuses perpetrated against- African-American psychiatric survivors. There is a rich history regarding natural healing and spirituality that needs further exploration to fully understand the efforts used in the community to honor and heal mental illness and trauma reactions. The White House
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:30:22 +0000
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