John Dittmer to speak on MCHR in Mississippi 1964-66

John Dittmer, professor emeritus of history, DePauw University
"The Medical Committee for Human Rights:
Race and the Politics of Health Care in the Civil Rights Era"
Friday, Oct. 7
12:00 pm
569 Hamilton Hall
Co-sponsored by the Deptartment of History

About the Medical Committee for Human Rights

Established by a group of northern left-wing physicians to provide health care for hundreds of civil rights activists during Mississippi’s Freedom Summer, MCHR stayed on to assist the state’s black poor, many of whom had never seen a physician. MCHR doctors and nurses provided “medical presence” during demonstrations, including the Selma March in 1965 and the Meredith March in 1966. The Southern Office of MCHR, under the leadership of Alvin Poussaint, played a key role in the desegregation of southern medical facilities. And two MCHR physicians, Count Gibson and Jack Geiger, founded the first comprehensive community health center in this country, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, which later expanded into a network of health centers that today serve ten million low income people.

Later, MCHR went on to take an active role against the war in Vietnam, came out early on for a woman’s right to an abortion, advocated national health insurance under a “single payer” plan, and attacked the American Medical Association for its racist membership policies. (I will touch briefly on these latter issues, but the focus of my talk will be on MCHR’s work in Mississippi and the South, from 1964-1966.)