To Raise Up the Man Farthest Down: Tuskegee University’s Advancements in Human Health, 1881–1987

By Dana R. Chandler, Edith Powell and Linda Kenney Miller

An important historical account of Tuskegee University’s significant advances in health care, which affected millions of lives worldwide.

Alabama’s celebrated, historically black Tuskegee University is most commonly associated with its founding president, Booker T. Washington, the scientific innovator George Washington Carver, or the renowned Tuskegee Airmen. Although the university’s accomplishments and devotion to social issues are well known, its work in medical research and health care has received little acknowledgment. Tuskegee has been fulfilling Washington’s vision of “healthy minds and bodies” since its inception in 1881. In To Raise Up the Man Farthest Down, Dana R. Chandler and Edith Powell document Tuskegee University’s medical and public health history with rich archival data and never-before-published photographs. Chandler and Powell especially highlight the important but largely unsung role that Tuskegee University researchers played in the eradication of polio, and they add new dimension and context to the fascinating story of the HeLa cell line that has been brought to the public’s attention by popular media.

Tuskegee University was on the forefront in providing local farmers the benefits of agrarian research. The university helped create the massive Agricultural Extension System managed today by land grant universities throughout the United States. Tuskegee established the first baccalaureate nursing program in the state and was also home to Alabama’s first hospital for African Americans. Washington hired Alabama’s first female licensed physician as a resident physician at Tuskegee. Most notably, Tuskegee was the site of a remarkable development in American biochemistry history: its microbiology laboratory was the only one relied upon by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (the organization known today as the March of Dimes) to produce the HeLa cell cultures employed in the national field trials for the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. Chandler and Powell are also interested in correcting a long-held but false historical perception that Tuskegee University was the location for the shameful and infamous US Public Health Service study of untreated syphilis.

Meticulously researched, this book is filled with previously undocumented information taken directly from the vast Tuskegee University archives. Readers will gain a new appreciation for how Tuskegee’s people and institutions have influenced community health, food science, and national medical life throughout the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Jul 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780817391911

Book preview

TO RAISE UP THE MAN FARTHEST DOWN

TO RAISE UP THE MAN FARTHEST DOWN

Tuskegee University’s Advancements in Human Health, 1881–1987

DANA R. CHANDLER and EDITH POWELL

Foreword by LINDA KENNEY MILLER

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2018 by the University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Caslon and Scala Sans

Cover image: From top left, clockwise: Dr. Russell Brown checking cell cultures; Jeanne M. Walton examining HeLa cells; Tuskegee’s hospital nurses, c. 1920; all courtesy of the Tuskegee University Archives.

Cover design: Michele Myatt Quinn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chandler, Dana R. (Dana Ray), 1958- author. | Powell, Edith, 1940-author.

Title: To raise up the man farthest down : Tuskegee University’s advancements in human health, 1881–1987 / Dana R. Chandler and Edith Powell ; foreword by Linda Kenney Miller.

Description: Tuscaloosa : The University of Alabama Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017053878| ISBN 9780817319892 (cloth) | ISBN 9780817391911 (ebook)

Subjects: | MESH: Tuskegee University. | Universities—history | Biomedical Research—history | Health Services—history | Poliovirus Vaccines—history | Race Relations—history | History, 19th Century | History, 20th Century | Alabama

Classification: LCC R746.A2 | NLM W 19 AA4 | DDC 610.71/176149—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017053878

Contents

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Foreword by Linda Kenney Miller

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Overcoming the Challenges of Our Past

1. Tuskegee’s Commitment to Health Care: An Overview

2. Health Education and Outreach Expands

3. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the Carver Research Foundation

4. The Search for the Vaccine

5. Tuskegee University’s HeLa Cell Project

6. After the Polio Vaccine

Epilogue

Appendix 1. African American March of Dimes Poster Children (1947–1960)

Appendix 2. Procedures for Inoculations

Appendix 3. HeLa Production Personnel at Tuskegee

Appendix 4. NFIP Grantee Laboratories Receiving HeLa Cultures from Tuskegee, 1953–1955

Appendix 5. Cell Strains in the Experimental Cell Repository at Tuskegee University from 1955 to 1961

Notes

References

Index

Figures

1. The original Tuskegee Institute Infirmary, established by Booker T. Washington for the care of students

2. Aerial view of Tuskegee University, c. 1940

3. Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee’s first president

4. Robert Moton

5. Frederick D. Patterson

6. Luther H. Foster

7. Benjamin F. Payton

8. Pinecrest Hospital, Tuskegee University Campus

9. John A. Kenney, MD

10. John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital

11. George Washington Carver in his laboratory

12. Program of John A. Andrew Clinical Society, 1927

13. National Negro Health Week poster, 1929

14. Rural farmhouse in Macon County, Alabama

15. Tuskegee farmers’ conference, 1912

16. Tuskegee Institute vegetable wagon

17. Carver’s sketch of the Jesup Agricultural Wagon

18. Students constructing the Jesup Wagon

19. The Jesup Wagon in use

20. Booker T. Washington reading on a farmer’s quiet porch

21. The Jesup Wagon in disrepair

22. A farm hog being inoculated by workers from the Knapp Agricultural Truck

23. Flyer soliciting funds for a new truck

24. Sketch of Booker T. Washington Agricultural School on Wheels

25. The Booker T. Washington Agricultural School on Wheels with a farm agent, home agent, and nurse

26. Bess Bolden Walcott featured on a 1944 Red Cross poster

27a. Eugenics form, part I

27b. Eugenics form, part II

28. John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital

29. John F. Hume with a young polio patient

30. John W. Chenault and a nurse attending a young polio patient

31. Tuskegee Hospital nurses, c. 1910

32. Dr. John A. Kenney and Tuskegee midwives, c. 1920

33. Dr. Lillian Harvey, who established nursing as a baccalaureate program at Tuskegee

34. Nursing students learning polio techniques

35. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O’Connor, FDR’s law partner and a cofounder of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis

36. March of Dimes card filled with Liberty Head dimes

37. Carver with a young patient and hospital staff

38. Carver reading his voluminous correspondence

39. Carver and Roosevelt meeting on Tuskegee’s Campus, March 1939

40. The Carver Museum

41. The Carver Research Foundation Building

42. Dr. Jonas Salk

43. President’s Birthday Ball at Tuskegee

44. Charles Bynum, head of Negro activities at the NFIP

45. First NFIP poster featuring a black child, c. 1949

46. Dr. Russell Brown checking cell cultures

47. Armstrong Hall Laboratory located off of Old Montgomery Road

48. Norma Gaillard, cell and tissue culture technician

49. Jeanne M. Walton examining HeLa cells

50. Technician in the Cell Culture Laboratory

51. Stock culture bottles being examined by lab technician

52. Joseph Jackson helping to produce HeLa cells

53. Technicians working in main laboratory

54. Technician performing colony count

55. Autoclave in use

56. Technician Joyce Perry utilizing assembly in dispensing HeLa cells

57. HeLa cells in a box with an equitherm warmer

58. Packaged HeLa cells being handed out a window for transport

59. Children in Macon County receiving inoculations

60. Dr. Russell Brown, director of the Carver Research Foundation; preeminent American scientist Dr. Carl Sagan; and Dr. James Henderson, assistant to Dr. Brown on the HeLa Cell Project

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Foreword

To Raise Up the Man Farthest Down: Tuskegee University’s Advancements in Human Health, 1881–1987 provides a timely and important historical account of significant advances in health care made in Tuskegee over the span of more than a century. In this book, Dana R. Chandler and Edith Powell have meticulously researched and presented comprehensive evidence that supports their thesis that the contributions of five Tuskegee presidents resulted in extraordinary advances in quality health care that impacted millions of lives worldwide.

Under the leadership of Dr. Booker T. Washington, founding president of Tuskegee Institute (now University), John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital was built on the campus to provide medical care for students, faculty, staff, and residents in the surrounding rural areas. A School of Nursing was established, and the John A. Andrew Clinical Society was formed to bring physicians of all races from across the nation to Tuskegee each year to perform surgeries and provide free medical services to patients from the region and to provide postgraduate medical training for thousands of black doctors who were barred from white institutions. Washington believed that a healthy community is a viable community and established Health Improvement Week (later National Negro Health Week), which was observed annually for thirty-five years. The campaign for better health continued after Washington’s death in 1915.

Robert Moton, Tuskegee’s second president (1915–1935), collaborated with Dr. John A. Kenney, developer of John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital, along with the National Medical Association and the NAACP to ensure that the veterans hospital being funded and constructed by the US government at Tuskegee in 1923 would be staffed by black medical personnel. Moton was responsible for the only chapter of the Red Cross for black people in the world, and his relationship with philanthropist Julius Rosenwald led to the establishment of educational programs and opportunities for black children in the Tuskegee community and across the South.

Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, Tuskegee’s third president (1935–1953), founded the School of Veterinary Medicine and the United Negro College Fund. Under his helm and with cooperation from the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, Tuskegee opened a unit for infantile paralysis treatment and research at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital in 1941. Under Patterson’s tenure, Tuskegee’s nursing program became the first accredited baccalaureate program in Alabama in 1948. Tuskegee continued to be the center of health care for black patients in Alabama and throughout the South.

Dr. Luther H. Foster, Tuskegee’s fourth president (1953–1981), shepherded the institution through the tumultuous civil rights movement. He oversaw the establishment of the Occupational Therapy and Clinical Lab Science programs and the development of a strong Engineering Department. He encouraged students to intern at the VA Hospital to ensure marketability and employability. Tuskegee’s Carver Research Foundation collaborated with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in the development of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, and their work with HeLa cells is now being widely recognized. HeLa cells are named after Henrietta Lacks and identified by the first two letters of her first and last names. Lacks died of cancer on October 4, 1951, and the line of her cervical cancer cells has proven to be so robust and productive that they have continued to be useful into the twenty-first century.

Dr. Benjamin F. Payton, Tuskegee’s fifth president (1981–2010), followed in his predecessors’ footsteps by establishing the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care as the result of President Bill Clinton’s apology on behalf of the nation for the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In 1985, Tuskegee Institute started offering doctoral programs in science and engineering and was therefore elevated to university status. The scope of this book covers the events between the university’s founding in 1881 through 1987, two years after this transition.

To Raise Up the Man Farthest Down recognizes the tenures of each of these Tuskegee presidents for their efforts to eradicate the racial, social, and cultural obstacles that they faced in their collective quest to maintain fidelity to the mission first espoused by Dr. Washington: high quality educational programs, effective public health policies, and equal opportunity. Progress made under each administration benefited the entire community and was integral to Tuskegee’s success in enhancing the quality of life for all—including the man farthest down.

Linda Kenney Miller, granddaughter of John A. Kenney, MD, and author of Beacon on the Hill

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks must go to Elizabeth Gregory North for her review and suggestions and support of the manuscript; without her support I cannot write. Also, special thanks to Breanna Chandler Yarbrough for her skillful review and comments throughout the process, but especially to the final draft.

To the Tuskegee Gang who have put up with our sporadic meetings and discussions during these last four years while writing on this story: Jim McSwain, Glenn Drummond, Tim and Kelly Bryant, Keri Hallford, Shirley Curry, and Lanice Middleton. Thank you for your patience and friendship.

To my own special support group: Betty P. Fisher, Rebecca G. Veal, Elaine W. Helms, Teresa H. Chandler, and Dr. Marceline Egnin. Your willingness to listen and offer suggestions and criticisms when needed, as well as your support, always, provided the wind beneath my wings. You are a blessing.

To Cheryl Ferguson, assistant archivist: a special friend and outstanding resource. Thank you for your patience in searching for documents for me over the years of this writing. I am forever grateful.

To the University of Alabama Press, especially Elizabeth Motherwell, Senior Acquisitions Editor for the Natural Sciences, who has championed our story since the beginning; Blanche Sarratt, Marketing Coordinator; and Joanna Jacobs, Assistant Managing Editor. Thanks and gratitude for your belief in our story, for your advocacy and guidance during the editing process, and for your overall support throughout the entire publication process. Also, thanks to the outside readers (you know who you are); your comments made this a better story.

Finally, but not the least, to my colleague and friend Dana R. Chandler: my forever thanks for your patience, support, encouragement, and knowledge-sharing during these long but rewarding months of writing. This book certainly would not have happened without your brilliance at computer skills and your historical writing genius. I learned very early in the preliminary discussions that the vocabulary of my medical background was not enough to enrich and qualify this story as a historical book. Without your understanding and willingness to listen to my thoughts expressed in medical vocabulary, then your help to re-form them into the accepted historical vernacular, the distinctive part of the story that I had to contribute would not have been as acceptable to the community of historical writers and publishers. What a great ride, laughs, at times some tension, much patience and untold hours of searching for the most exciting words and phrases; and, the absolute best outcome: Yes, we are still friends.

— Edith Powell

My acknowledgments must start with my coauthor and dear friend, Edith Powell. Edie, as her friends call her, is a special individual. She is both gentle and intense, brilliant and accommodating, and, above all, patient with someone who is demanding and precise in his writing. I am not a medical expert. In fact, I am a novice in every respect. Edie’s intimate knowledge of medical terminology and techniques, particularly regarding polio treatment, made this work possible. Simply, it would not have been possible for me to write anything without her. Thank you, my Edie.

My daughter, Breanna Chandler Yarbrough, has proven to be helpful to me time and again as an editor and advocate. Brilliant and accommodating, all I must do is ask and she readily spends her energy in doing whatever is needed. Thank you, Breanna for reading and rereading this work. Your comments and suggestions have directly contributed to its success.

To my friends and colleagues, also known as the Tuskegee Gang, thank you. Jim McSwain, Glenn Drummond, Tim and Kelly Bryant, Keri Hallford, Shirley Curry, and Lanice Middleton have helped with their support, suggestions and patience during a long and arduous process. A special thanks to Jared McWilliams for scanning the images.

To my supervisor and friend Juanita Roberts, thank you for believing in me and supporting me in my work here at Tuskegee University. The opportunity to work here during your tenure as Director of Library Services has made my job pleasant and satisfying. This job made writing this book easier.

To Cheryl Ferguson, my colleague and friend, thank you for all that you have done to make this possible. You aided us with researching, by making suggestions, and by holding off interruptions. Again, thank you so much.

Thank you to the wonderful staff at the University of Alabama Press. You kept believing in us and pushing us.

To Tuskegee University and the people that preceded me, you are the reason for this book. Your legacy has provided the fodder for every page. God, in His infinite wisdom, knew this is where I should be. I love this institution. Thank you.

Finally, to my wonderful wife and best friend, Teresa, you always know how to keep me grounded and you never let me forget where my priorities should be. Thank you for loving me and believing in me.

— Dana R. Chandler

Introduction

Overcoming the Challenges of Our Past

The investment in things that make for health, for prosperity, for upright living, those things immediately yield their profit to all who will encourage them.

—Booker T. Washington

Mention Tuskegee University¹ to just about anyone, and you will get the same reply: Oh that’s the home of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Sometimes, they may mistake it for the location of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study or only associate it with the famous Tuskegee Airmen. While these are all important pieces of Tuskegee’s history, the university is more than these. It is also home to the National Negro Business League and the National Negro Health Week.² It is the alma mater of the first black³ woman to win a gold medal at an Olympics and to coach an Olympic team.⁴ It is where the first four-star black general earned his undergraduate degree and where the principal protagonist in the pivotal 1961 Civil rights Supreme Court case Gomillion v. Lightfoot taught classes.⁵ It is also the location of the laboratory used to mass-produce the cell cultures used in the field trials for the Salk and Sabin vaccines, allowing research that eventually led to an almost complete eradication of polio⁶ in the United States. Historically, Tuskegee has been a leader among black colleges and universities, including sports, social issues, research, and health care. Although the university’s involvement in sports and social issues has been highly touted and investigated, its work in research and health care has received little acknowledgement.

Tuskegee University has been intimately involved with health care since its inception, fulfilling Booker T. Washington’s vision of healthy minds and bodies.⁷ Unfortunately, many have the erroneous impression there is little more to learn about Tuskegee’s role in science⁸ and medicine. Its contributions have been overshadowed by the infamous US Public Health Service Syphilis Study. This so-called study was actually an ethical travesty: from 1932 to 1972, 600 black men in Macon County (399 of whom already had syphilis) were told they were being treated for a generalized ailment dubbed bad blood when in reality, none of the patients were given any treatment at all—even though the effects of untreated syphilis were already universally understood, and even after a cure for syphilis was widely available. After the study finally ended in the 1970s, it became a national outrage—a symbol for scientific racism that greatly increased public awareness of the issues of medical ethics and informed consent. Although the university did not itself instigate, run, or house the study, it was involved with the study’s initial inception.

In 1929, the US Public Health Service, with funding from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, sponsored a syphilis treatment pilot program in five Southern states to determine the prevalence, and eventual treatment, of the disease among rural African American populations. Because it was initially characterized as a humanitarian effort, Tuskegee’s then-president, Robert Moton, agreed to throw the institute’s support behind it if Tuskegee Institute [got] its full share of the credit and some black medical professionals were given the opportunity to take part. Fortunately, Moton’s request was not followed through with, and Tuskegee was able to avoid any future embarrassment for complicity in the latter, more infamous study. The initial Rosenwald-funded version of the study came to an end in 1932 when there was a lack of matching funds from local jurisdictions.⁹ The federal government used the Rosenwald study findings to determine the location for their later work. The idea that that the so-called Tuskegee Syphlilis Study was initiated or administered by Tuskeege University is a misconception.

Conversely, Macon County (of which the town of Tuskegee is the county seat) was also the site of pioneering work by Tuskegee University researchers that supported the development of a preventative for infantile paralysis. It is no accident that some of the breakthrough work for the prevention of polio was conducted at Tuskegee. This came about because of a long history of efforts to advance scholarship, science, and technology beginning with the university’s founders and continuing through its celebrated history. These were accomplished in spite of racism, scientific or otherwise.

Although Tuskegee excelled in promoting its graduates among the black community, especially during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the specter of racism hindered many in achieving their dreams and aspirations. Tuskegee became a haven for young intellectuals who came seeking knowledge in an environment that was singularly nurturing and nonoppressive. Unfortunately, after graduation, they were hindered not only by segregation, but also by a different type of racism.

Racism can be simply defined as a form of propaganda used to promote the superiority of one race over another, but it is also a social and political construct used to justify the bias and exploitation of a group that deems itself superior to a group deemed inferior for economic and political gains.¹⁰ In fact, the concept of race is a rather new one, seeming to rise out of the ugly process of slavery.¹¹ Enslaved black people, who were often uneducated, having originated in or descended from a foreign culture with different customs and religions, were seen as incapable of meeting European standards of custom, religion, and culture.¹² Scientific racism,¹³ which promotes the idea that one group of people is intellectually or physiologically superior to another, has its origins within the United States, specifically with Darwinist thought that propagated the notion that primitive peoples could not be assimilated into a complex, white civilization.¹⁴ Science has nothing to do with race or racism.¹⁵

The idea of scientific racism entered the mainstream during the latter half of the nineteenth century when men such as Arthur Gobineau, Vacher de Lapouge, and Johann Gottfried Herder sought to rank people based upon their supposed genetic origins within a specific region or nation.¹⁶ Distinctions