1. Black power in the 1920's: the case of Tuskegee Veterans Hospital
- Author
-
Pete Daniel
- Subjects
Gerontology ,History ,White (horse) ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Immigration ,History, Modern 1601 ,Destiny ,Gender studies ,League ,Unrest ,Hospitals ,United States ,Black or African American ,Politics ,White supremacy ,Black Power ,media_common - Abstract
THE 1920s, LONG CHARACTERIZED AS BEING MARKED BY EXCESSES IN dress, drink, and debauchery, had other aspects that, though not so spectacular, were nevertheless significant. As white America enjoyed a new affluence and suffered the disaffection of intellectuals, black America discovered its soul. As white intellectuals fled to France to escape crass America, black workers fled the southern plantations for the hope of the northern ghetto. As the Ku Klux Klan lauded white supremacy, so Marcus Garvey praised black people and the African heritage and found the recent immigrants his most enthusiastic supporters. Pan-Africanism, the crusades of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the revolts on Negro campuses, and the eager work of the Urban League indicated an unrest and also an awareness that many black Americans desired a large, important, and increasing role in guiding their own lives. Crisis and Opportunity, the organs of the NAACP and the Urban League, respectively, became vehicles of the revolution in black attitudes. Black poetry, black literature, black art, and black accomplishments in other fields found enthusiastic champions in these and other journals. Black power, broadly defined as the organized effort of black Americans to shape their own destiny, emerged clearly in the 1920s. While the northern Negro experienced the excitement of new literary and political currents, a unique and portentous event unfolded in the South. In 1921 the Treasury Department decided to build a single hospital for Negro veterans. Such a hospital was imperative because many Negro veterans had been shunted into inferior private facilities or in some cases had been completely neglected. After several southern communities had turned down the proposed structure, Tuskegee, Alabama, accepted.1
- Published
- 1970