Hospital Desegregation and Hospital Holdouts: Compliance and Resistance Among Hospitals to the Civil Rights Act, 1965-1970

Until the 1960s, hospitals were racially segregated under Jim Crow laws. Some hospitals desegregated in the 1960s due to the passage of the 1965 Medicare Act, which only provided funding to desegregated hospitals. Some hospitals, however, refused Medicare funding and continued to be segregated. Despite ongoing and significant health disparities, hospital desegregation has garnered far less social science interest than other settings, such as schools or neighborhoods. Doctoral student in sociology Courtney Allen will examine the conditions under which hospitals in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina desegregated. She will analyze data from the American Hospital Association’s annual survey, the Lyndon Baines John Library, and the National Medical Library for her study.