HEJ - History of Desegregation of WUSM Flashcards
1724
Louisiana Code Noir
Code Noir, or slave code, was introduced in 1724
and remained in force until the U.S. took
possession of Louisiana Territory in 1803. The
Code’s 54 articles regulated the status of slaves
and free blacks. Article 32 states that a fugitive
slave who has been on the run for one month from
the day his master reported him to the police, shall
have his ears cut off and shall be branded with a
fleur-de-lis, a prominent symbol for the City of
St. Louis
1807
Importation of slaves is abolished
This leads to slave masters/plantation owners
forcing black women to have more children because
they were of value to slave masters/plantation
owner
1818
On September 25, 1818 the Osage Nation ceded
another 1.8 million acres in Missouri and Oklahoma
with no compensation. The Treaty of St. Louis
includes a series of 14 treaties, all signed in St.
Louis with various Indigenous tribes from 1804
through 1824.
1819
Free blacks and their allies protest the entrance of
Missouri into the Union as a slave state in front of
the Old Courthouse
1824
Winny vs. Whiteside: The first freedom suit heard
by the Supreme Court of Missouri. The court
determined that if a slave owner took a slave into
free territory and established residence there, the
slave would be free
1830’s
Introduction of “negro medicine” begins as the
abolitionist movement picks up. Negro medicine is
developed to prove the inferiority of Black people
and justify slavery.
Polygenists tried to use science and the Bible to
prove that races evolved from different origins.
(This has since been disproved and monogenism
has been widely accepted.)
Recorded experimentation begins on Black women’s
bodies, from experimental cesarean sections to
removal of an ovary.
Half of the articles in the 1836 Southern Medical
and Surgical Journal are dealing with experiments
on Black people.
1845-1849
James Marion Simms performs experimental surgery
on a 17-year-old female slave name Anarca.
He would perform over 30 operations on her and
additional operations on 11 other female slaves.
No anesthesia was used on enslaved women, even
after it was introduced in 1846.
1851
A book call The Natural History of the Human
Species puts into print a common and dangerous
misconception that Black people did not feel pain or
anxiety.
1846
St. Louis City hospital #1 begins operation; Was kept strictly segregated. Black/AA people were treated in the rear part of the 2nd and 3rd floors
1879
Children’s Hospital
opens in a small
house. Serves white
patients only.
1865
The Missouri Constitutional Convention officially
abolishes slavery in Missouri three weeks before
the United States Congress proposed the
Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
1875
The Missouri Constitution mandates separate public
schools for white and African American students as
a primary tool of de jure Jim Crow segregation in
postwar Missouri along with a prohibition against
miscegenation. Missouri and St. Louis remain
starkly segregated after the Civil War.
Sumner High School, the first African American
high school west of the Mississippi, opens on
Eleventh Street between Poplar and Spruce. The
school is later moved to The Ville neighborhood in
1910.
1884
Children’s Hospital moves to a new building. The
wards are for whites only. They provide an
outpatient clinic that is open to all and is not
segregated.
1896
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that “separate but
equal” public accommodations are not in violation
of the Fourteenth Amendment, thereby legalizing
racial segregation.
1900’s
A wave of immigration to the U.S. sparks the birth
of the American eugenics movement. One key
objective was to reduce the childbearing or
sterilization of poor and disabled women.
Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood,
starts the Negro Project. Family planning centers
that pushed birth control in the Black South.
1901
African Americans in St. Louis died of tuberculosis
at a rate more than three times higher than Whites
• Most of these disparities arose from differences in
living conditions related to poverty and segregation; however,
the public institutions also gave different treatment based
upon race.
1902
Jewish hospital is created because St. Louis
hospitals refused to hire and train Jewish doctors or
see Jewish patients.
1910 and 1911
1914 (2 things)
The St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP is founded, 5
years after the national organization takes root
Barnes Hospital is created as a private hospital and
is segregated like most hospitals and all other
aspects of society
1917
East St. Louis Race Riots: Also known as the East
St. Louis Pogrom, result in the massacre of African
Americans by white rioters, who target black
strikebreakers as scapegoats for their labor anger
Though no definitive record exists, it’s estimated
that between 40-250 lives were lost in the riots, a
majority black.
1915
Children’s Hospital moves to the medical campus,
returning to a whites only hospital. Minutes from a
board meeting suggest that some members were
regretful about moving back to a full segregated
facility.
1918 ( 2 things)
In response to the East St. Louis Race Riots, the
St. Louis chapter of the Urban League was founded
to provide resources to African Americans
Leonidas C. Dyer, Missouri Twelfth District
representative, introduces an anti-lynching bill in
the U.S. House of Representatives, also in
response to the massacre during the East St. Louis
Race Riots.
White women first gain admission to the student
body of the school of medicine.
1919
St. Louis City Hospital #2 is created to serve the
growing Black/AA population as a result of the great
migration from the south.
Conditions were terrible:
Overcrowding – Pulling 2 beds together for 3
patients
No quarantine for TB patients – AA/Black
patients with 3x the rate of TB than whites
1923
Children’s Hospital first began admitting black inpatients. They could only be admitted into the “Ward
for Colored Patients”, (known as the Butler Ward),
located on the first floor of the main hospital building
