Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem 936-1968

How and why did public institutions become more racially inclusive during the Civil Rights Era? Was it because most white Americans had questioned their own assumptions about what blacks could think, feel, or do? Racial attitudes had changed for the better, but only within small pockets of society. In New York's mental health system, African Americans received increased access to care in facilities where such pockets had formed. Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem uncovers the history of the individuals that worked to make psychiatry more available to the black community.BR> Between 1936 and 1968, Justine Wise Polier, Viola W. Bernard, Elizabeth B. Davis, Max Winsor, Ray Trussell, and other civil servants helped institutionalize a new racial assumption within the children's courts, Harlem's public schools, Columbia University, and the Department of Hospitals: namely, that blacks and whites were psychological equals. This book explores the historical circumstances that permitted those racial liberals to gain a foothold within New York, affording them an opportunity to create inclusive public policies and ostensibly race-neutral standards of care. Psychiatry and Racial Liberalism in Harlem contributes to a growing body of scholarship on race and health by helping us better understand how our medical institutions changed in the Civil Rights Era. Dennis Doyle is an Assistant Professor of History at the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy.