- Moderator
- #141
The Harlem Clinic
In 1929, 10 years before Sanger created the Negro Project, the ABCL laid the groundwork for a clinic in Harlem, a largely black section of New York City. It was the dawn of the Great Depression, and for blacks that meant double the misery. Blacks faced harsher conditions of desperation and privation because of widespread racial prejudice and discrimination. From the ABCL’s perspective, Harlem was the ideal place for this "experimental clinic," which officially opened on November 21, 1930. Many blacks looked to escape their adverse circumstances and therefore did not recognize the eugenic undercurrent of the clinic. The clinic relied on the generosity of private foundations to remain in business. In addition to being thought of as "inferior" and disproportionately represented in the underclass, according to the clinic’s own files used to justify its "work," blacks in Harlem:
Although the clinic served whites as well as blacks, it "was established for the benefit of the colored people." Sanger wrote this in a letter to Dr. W. E. Burghardt DuBois
- were segregated in an over-populated area (224,760 of 330,000 of greater New York’s population lived in Harlem during the late 1920s and 1930s);
- comprised 12 percent of New York City’s population, but accounted for 18.4 percent of New York City’s unemployment;
- had an infant mortality rate of 101 per 1000 births, compared to 56 among whites;
- had a death rate from tuberculosis–237 per 100,000–that was highest in central Harlem, out of all of New York City.
She's a helper. Her love of the blacks has me wellin up....
What do you think of Thomas Jefferson's love of blacks? "wellin up" are you?