1619 Episode 4

During this time, with the Freedmen’s Bureau Medical Program, the government was only supplying 100 doctors for the entire emancipated population of 4 million people. The original purpose for this was to stop the spread of diseases from entering white neighborhoods, but they did not want to provide constant support and have black individuals becoming dependent. They would open up these hospitals with a few doctors, but shut them down at the first sight of progress and refuse to send any more resources. Because of the lack of attention and resources being sent, black people continued to die at faster rates. Then because of these people dying at faster rates, the theory emerges that black people are not dying because of their lack of resources, but that nature is taking its course and black people are dying because they are inferior to white people. This is extremely sad to learn about. Those individuals were neglected by the government and left to die instead of supplying resources that were needed. The addition of this theory that blacks were inferior would also contribute to the ongoing segregation that black people would face for decades to come.