{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T07:43:15Z","timestamp":1785224595746,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"American Public Health Association","issue":"5","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Am J Public Health"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2007,5]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> The Tuskegee Institute opened a polio center in 1941, funded by the March of Dimes. The center\u2019s founding was the result of a new visibility of Black polio survivors and the growing political embarrassment around the policy of the Georgia Warm Springs polio rehabilitation center, which Franklin Roosevelt had founded in the 1920s before he became president and which had maintained a Whites-only policy of admission. This policy, reflecting the ubiquitous norm of race-segregated health facilities of the era, was also sustained by a persuasive scientific argument about polio itself: that Blacks were not susceptible to the disease. <\/jats:p><jats:p> After a decade of civil rights activism, this notion of polio as a White disease was challenged, and Black health professionals, emboldened by a new integrationist epidemiology, demanded that in polio, as in American medicine at large, health care should be provided regardless of race, color, or creed. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2105\/ajph.2006.095406","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2007,3,30]],"date-time":"2007-03-30T01:21:41Z","timestamp":1175217701000},"page":"784-795","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":27,"title":["Race and the Politics of Polio"],"prefix":"10.2105","volume":"97","author":[{"given":"Naomi","family":"Rogers","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Naomi Rogers is with the Section of the History of Medicine and the Women\u2019s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Yale University, New Haven, Conn."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"844","reference":[{"key":"R1","unstructured":"\u201cParalysis Center Set Up for Negroes,\u201d New York Times, May 22, 1939."},{"key":"R4","unstructured":"\u201cStatement at the Dedication of the Infantile Paralysis Unit,\u201d Atlanta Daily Herald, February 6, 1940."},{"key":"R5","unstructured":"John W. Chenault, \u201cInfantile Paralysis (Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis),\u201d Journal of the National Medical Association 33 (1941): 220\u201326, quote 221."},{"key":"R6","unstructured":"Charles H. Bynum, \u201cDimes Against Death,\u201d Negro Digest 5 (1947), 82."},{"key":"R10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/infdis\/58.3.331"},{"key":"R12","unstructured":"On theories of acquired immunity during the 1910s, see Paul, History, 131\u201333. On research projects (probably inspired by George Draper\u2019s work) funded by Rockefeller Foundation during the 1916 epidemic that included detecting \u201cphysical characteristics,\u201d see Paul, History, 152. On the history of race and disability, see Douglas C. Baynton, \u201cDisability and the Justification of Inequality in American History,\u201d in Paul K. Long-more and Lauri Umansky, eds. New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 33\u201357."},{"key":"R16","unstructured":"\u201cMay See Paralysis Treatment,\u201d New York Times, October 31, 1933; \u201cPeanut Oil Helps in Paralysis Cure,\u201d Washington Post, December 31, 1933; \u201cMineral Oil Helps Cure Ailing Boys,\u201d Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1934; \u201cCripples Beg Cure of Negro Scientist,\u201d Washington Post, January 7, 1934. On Carver\u2019s polio work, see Linda O. McMurry, George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 242\u201355; and Rackham Holt, George Washington Carver: An American Biography (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co, 1943), 299. For Carver\u2019s description of the 2020 letters he had received during 1934, see Carver to Mrs Hardwick, December 16, 1934, reprinted in Gary R. Kremer, George Washington Carver: In His Own Words (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1987), 146. On Roosevelt\u2019s tactful responses to Carver, see David M. Oshinsky, Polio: An American Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 66."},{"key":"R17","unstructured":"McMurry, Scientist and Symbol, 253\u201354; \u201cNegro Citizens to Give Ball for Roosevelt,\u201d Washington Post, January 14, 1934."},{"key":"R18","unstructured":"\u201cGeorgia\u201d was probably added because there were other well-known warm springs linked to health resorts. On Roosevelt and Warm Springs, see Hugh Gregory Gallagher, FDR\u2019s Splendid Deception (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1985); Dawn W. Houck and Amos Kiewe, FDR\u2019s Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability (College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 2003); Theo Lippman Jr. The Squire of Warm Springs: F.D.R. in Georgia, 1924\u20131945 (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1977); and Turnley Walker, Roosevelt and the Warm Springs Story (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1953)."},{"key":"R21","unstructured":"Reinette Lovewell Donnelly, \u201cPlaying Polio at Warm Springs,\u201d Polio Chronicle 1 (1932): n.p. On Roosevelt\u2019s personal efforts to give \u201cAunt Sarah\u201d an \u201cold-age security\u201d pension, see Walker, Roosevelt and the Warm Springs Story, 260\u2013261."},{"key":"R25","unstructured":"\u201cAffront to Negro Laid to New Deal,\u201d New York Times, November 1, 1936."},{"key":"R26","unstructured":"\u201cColored Help Warm Springs; Can\u2019t Get Aid,\u201d Chicago Tribune, October 15, 1936; \u201cApplication of Race Lad to Warm Springs Signal for Buck Passing,\u201d Chicago Defender, October 24, 1936. See also \u201cWarm Springs Bars Negro Boy,\u201d New York Sun, October 14, 1936; and Walter White to Eleanor Roosevelt, October 20, 1936, both quoted in Chappell and Hume, \u201cA Black Oasis,\u201d 34\u201337."},{"key":"R27","unstructured":"George W. Holbert, \u201cReply to Mr. Ickes,\u201d Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1936."},{"key":"R30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2105\/AJPH.92.2.191"},{"key":"R37","unstructured":"McMurry, Scientist and Symbol, 253; James Saxon Childers, \u201cA Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse,\u201d American Magazine (1932), reprinted in Reader\u2019s Digest 30 (1937): 5\u20139; and see \u201cEx-Slave Aids Paralytics,\u201d New York Times, July 20, 1937."},{"key":"R47","unstructured":"James Hale Porter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, August 3, 1937 [letter reprinted] in \u201cWhat The People Say,\u201d Chicago Defender, August 14, 1937."},{"key":"R48","unstructured":"\u201cUrges Nation Use Dr. Carver in Infantile Paralysis Fight,\u201d Chicago Defender, September 25, 1937."},{"key":"R49","unstructured":"\u201cWe Donated, But They Left Us Out,\u201d Chicago Defender, August 7, 1937."},{"key":"R51","unstructured":"Walcott, \u201cTuskegee Institute Infantile Paralysis Center,\u201d 14; \u201cDr J. S. Brookens, AME Editor, Dies On Train,\u201d Chicago Defender, September 22, 1951; \u201cRoosevelt to See Noted Dr. Carver on Tuskegee Visit,\u201d Birmingham Age-Herald, March 30, 1939. For the broader picture on Black medical leaders and philanthropic funding, see P. Preston Reynolds, \u201cDr Louis T. Wright and the NAACP: Pioneers in Hospital Racial Integration,\u201d American Journal of Public Health 90 (2000): 883\u201387; W. Michael Byrd and Linda A. Clayton, An American Health Dilemma: Race, Medicine, and Health Care in the United States, 1900\u20132000 (New York: Routledge, 2002); Hine, \u201cBlack Professionals and Race Consciousness,\u201d 1279\u201394; and E. H. Beardsley, \u201cMaking Separate, Equal: Black Physicians and the Problems of Medical Segregation in the Pre-World War II South,\u201d Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57(1983): 382\u2013396."},{"key":"R52","unstructured":"\u201cRoosevelt Thrilled by Tuskegee Choir\u201d; \u201cPresident Meets Dr. Carver, Tuskegee Wizard,\u201d Pittsburgh Courier, April 8, 1939."},{"key":"R54","unstructured":"\u201cStatement at the Dedication of the Infantile Paralysis Unit\u201d; \u201cInfantile Paralysis to Be Treated Here,\u201d Atlanta Daily Herald, February 6, 1940."},{"key":"R55","unstructured":"O\u2019Connor, \u201cEducation in Infantile Paralysis,\u201d 196\u201397; see also O\u2019Connor\u2019s address quoted in \u201cNew Polio Center to Aid Negro Paralysis Victims,\u201d Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, June 25, 1939."},{"key":"R56","unstructured":"O\u2019Connor \u201cEducation in Infantile Paralysis,\u201d 194, 195; see also \u201c\u2018Do Ye Also Unto Them,\u2019\u201d Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City), January 18, 1941."},{"key":"R57","unstructured":"Chenault, \u201cInfantile Paralysis,\u201d 221. See also Chenault\u2019s speech at the ground breaking ceremony for the Tuskegee Center in January 1940, on \u201crecent surveys\u201d which showed \u201cno appreciable variation between the white and Negro races\u201d; \u201cInfantile Paralysis Center Launched at Tuskegee,\u201d Birmingham (Alabama) News, January 12, 1940."},{"key":"R58","unstructured":"\u201cNegro Polio Victims Gets Foundation Aid,\u201d New York Times, December 21, 1945."},{"key":"R59","unstructured":"Charles H. Bynum, \u201cDimes Against Death,\u201d Negro Digest 5 (1947), 82."},{"key":"R60","unstructured":"\u201cNegro Polio Victims Aided in All States,\u201d New York Times, December 18, 1946; \u201cNegro Groups Aided by Polio Foundation,\u201d New York Times, January 9, 1949."},{"key":"R62","unstructured":"\u201c$329.03 Is Raised in Atlanta Polio Drive,\u201d Atlanta Daily World, February 7, 1941; \u201cDisease Knows No Color Line,\u201d (Baltimore) Afro-American, January 1, 1949."},{"key":"R63","unstructured":"Catherine Worthingham, \u201cProfessional Education and Poliomyelitis,\u201d Journal of the National Medical Association 43 (1951): 24."},{"key":"R64","unstructured":"\u201cSays Warm Springs Treats Negro Polio Victims Now, Atlanta Daily Herald, September 8, 1945; \u201cWarm Springs Treats Negro Polio Victims,\u201d Chicago Defender, September 8, 1945."},{"key":"R65","unstructured":"Robert Darr, \u201cThe Deep South Speaks,\u201d Louisiana Weekly, January 18, 1947; \u201cPolio Grants Made to Train Negroes,\u201d New York Times, September 26, 1947; \u201cMarching Against Polio,\u201d Atlanta Daily World, January 14, 1948. The 1947 poster girl \u201cNegro child Rita Reed\u201d was a 5-year-old polio patient from Blue Island, IL; Joe Willie Brown was a poster boy for the 1948 campaign."},{"key":"R66","unstructured":"Wilma Rudolph, Wilma (New York, NY: Signet Books, 1977), cited in Wilson, Living with Polio, 146."},{"key":"R67","unstructured":"\u201cTuskegee to Hold Polio Conference,\u201d New York Times, November 26, 1950."},{"key":"R68","unstructured":"\u201cNegro Leaders\u2019 Contribution in Field of Health Praised by Basil O\u2019Connor, President of National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis,\u201d Globe and Independent (Nashville), December 1, 1950; \u201cO\u2019-Connor Praises Contribution of Negro Leaders to Health,\u201d Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser, November 28, 1950."},{"key":"R69","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1046\/j.1525-1446.2001.00253.x"},{"key":"R70","unstructured":"\u201cPolio Strikes Negroes 1st in Louisiana,\u201d Washington Post, August 21, 1951."},{"key":"R72","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"\u201cSalk Vaccine Effectiveness Is Tribute to Cooperation,\u201d (Baltimore) Afro-American, April 23, 1955; R.W. Brown and J. H. Henderson, \u201cThe Mass Production and Distribution of HeLa cells at the Tuskegee Institute, 1953\u201355,\u201d Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 38 (1983): 413\u2013431.","DOI":"10.1093\/jhmas\/38.4.415"},{"key":"R73","unstructured":"Enoc P. Waters, \u201cSalk Vaccine Is Triumph of Racial Cooperation,\u201d Chicago Defender, April 23, 1955."},{"key":"R75","unstructured":"Charles H. Bynum, \u201cUpholding a Pledge,\u201d Opportunity 24 (1946): 22. After outrage at their poor treatment, these patients were removed to a general hospital in Atlanta; \u201cDon\u2019t Say We Didn\u2019t Tell You,\u201d Chicago Defender, April 5, 1947; \u201cPolio Grants Made to Train Negroes,\u201d New York Times, September 26, 1947; Gould, Summer Plague, 189\u2013191; Photo Album, Box 3, photos 909 and G418, Georgia Warm Springs Foundation Record, March of Dimes Archives; and see Elaine M. Strauss, In My Heart I\u2019m Still Dancing (New Rochelle, NY: self published, 1979), 90\u201391, cited in Fairchild \u201cThe Polio Narratives,\u201d 531, fn. 211."},{"key":"R76","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7326\/0003-4819-126-11-199706010-00009"},{"key":"R78","unstructured":"\u201cRace Bias Stops Mahalia Jackson,\u201d Chicago Defender, January 19, 1957."}],"container-title":["American Journal of Public Health"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/ajph.aphapublications.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.2105\/AJPH.2006.095406","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2022,5,9]],"date-time":"2022-05-09T22:52:37Z","timestamp":1652136757000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/ajph.aphapublications.org\/doi\/full\/10.2105\/AJPH.2006.095406"}},"subtitle":["Warm Springs, Tuskegee, and the March of Dimes"],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2007,5]]},"references-count":41,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2007,5]]}},"alternative-id":["10.2105\/AJPH.2006.095406"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2105\/ajph.2006.095406","relation":{},"ISSN":["0090-0036","1541-0048"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0090-0036","type":"print"},{"value":"1541-0048","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2007,5]]}}}