Deluxe Jim Crow: Civil Rights and American Health Policy, 1935-1954

Plagued by geographic isolation, poverty, and acute shortages of health professionals and hospital beds, the South was dubbed by Surgeon General Thomas Parran “the nation’s number one health problem.” The improvement of southern, rural, and black health would become a top priority of the U.S. Public Health Service during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

Karen Kruse Thomas details how NAACP lawsuits pushed southern states to equalize public services and facilities for blacks just as ...