2011/04/01 by Martha F. Davis · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Medical History and Research
paper · doi:10.1086/ahr.116.2.478
openalex publication_date 2011/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
John Dittmer's book makes a significant contribution to historical analysis of the 1960s. Given the recent health care legislation and the continuing debate concerning health care policy, this is an aspect of 1960s history that is particularly timely today. Dittmer's satisfying work delivers both historical detail and contextual nuance in an illuminating discussion that fills in a previous gap in the scholarly literature. Dittmer's story is framed by events that are familiar to historians of the twentieth century: the Freedom Summer, the Poor People's Campaign, and the activities of the New Left. Examining these familiar occasions through the perspective of the medical community's activism—specifically the activities of the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR)—rounds out the picture in important ways. For example, Phyllis Cunningham, a nurse operating under the auspices of MCHR during the 1965 march on Selma, describes in clinical detail the medical issues that she treated when protesters were clubbed by police officers; her tale provides a unique and important perspective on the event. Similarly, Dr. June Finer, a longtime MCHR service provider, offers a medically oriented view of violent civil rights demonstrations in Jackson, Mississippi, where she provided medical support in an effort to prevent more serious injuries. In addition to treating the wounds of protesters and community members, the MCHR developed approaches to providing psychological and psychiatric support to civil rights workers—another perspective on the wages of civil rights work that is rarely addressed. Further, the MCHR engaged with, and strengthened, the networks of black doctors in the South who were often forced to operate outside of the establishment medical structure.