Black Health and Wellness

The theme for the 2022 Black History Month celebration is “Black Health and Wellness.” The month’s emphasis will examine how American healthcare has often underserved the African-American community as well as celebrate the legacy of Black contributors, scholars, and practitioners in Western medicine. Our celebration also highlights other ways of knowing (e.g., birthworkers, doulas, midwives, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.) throughout the African Diaspora. The 2022 theme considers activities, rituals and initiatives that “Black communities have done to be well.”

Beginning with slavery, a lack of economic opportunity, often put medical care out of reach for many African-Americans.

Even in good economic times, during the Jim Crow era “Whites Only” hospitals were commonplace throughout the South. Black medical facilities were often understaffed, underfunded, or non-existent. This stark reality gave credence to the saying: “When white folks catch a cold, black folks get pneumonia.”

Yet, Black folk remedies helped pick up the slack involving rituals and incantations, harking back to its African roots. Many plant-based medicines were also part of the cure. These included garlic for high blood pressure, and aloe vera for skin injuries which have since been validated in scientific studies.

It was only into the 20th century when Black America was given a better shot at institutional health care. That’s when the US government threatened to withhold Medicare payments to ‘Whites Only” medical institutions and — almost overnight — hospitals were desegregated. The year was 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

More than 40 years later, following years of negotiations with the health insurance industry, the Affordable Care Act was eventually passed by the Obama administration that gave better access to medical care for Americans of all colors.

Today, (almost unbelievably for a rich industrialized nation), the US continues to lag behind the rest of the world in providing affordable medical care for a majority of its citizens. As a result, African-Americans, other minorities and especially the poor remain among the country’s most vulnerable populations.

***Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable. — Kenyan Proverb

***Freedom is never given; it is won.

— A. Philip Randolph in keynote speech given at the Second National Negro Congress in 1937