Organizing for Medical Equity: Black Newspapers in the West, 1900–40

The second paper provides a history of Black newspapers’ support of the medical profession in the West during the early twentieth century. While discussing medical institutions and history, I focus on the Black media’s role in creating the micro-Black hospital movement and developing the Black medical profession. In the 1890s, Black physicians from the South began to move West due to westward expansion and Black population growth. The Black population in the Greater Kansas City Area expanded, creating the need for Black physicians and medical facilities. Segregation prevented Black physicians from treating white patients, and Black patients were barred from receiving medical care at public health facilities. In response, Black physicians, philanthropists, and communities in the Greater Kansas City Area began establishing Black medical facilities. They established these facilities to address two main problems: (1) Black physicians and nurses needed a space to practice their profession and hone their skills, and (2) Black patients needed access to modern medical treatment, free from judgment and racial prejudice. Black physicians established these hospitals as early as 1898, and the Black newspapers both locally and nationally supported them throughout the twentieth century. I argue that Black newspapers’ grassroots organizing and support of these hospitals resulted in a parallel medical profession in the Greater Kansas City Area.