After the Civil War, the cruel and lasting effects of enslavement and white terrorism left many Black bodies deformed, diseased, and malnourished. Many children died in infancy, and those of us who weren’t physically disabled still had poor health. So we organized and demanded government help – and the laws changed!
Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau – but it wasn’t because they cared about Black health. The agricultural industry was failing without enslavement, and white people weren’t skilled or industrious enough to save it – they needed laborers. And there was something else.
President Lincoln turned over control of health care to the very states that wanted Black people to go back to enslavement! Though medical care was available, it was still substandard. There was one other factor that finally ruined the program.
White people! They fought against the program until the federal government finally just gave up. Since then, each time Black people begin to experience equality, white people found ways to block progress. Today a similar gap in healthcare between Black people and white people still exists.
We deserve to be healthy. White people fought against our health then, and they fight against it now. Nevertheless, the bottom line is still this: to ever get truly healthy, we HAVE to address the racism and white terrorism that makes us sick in the first place!