Summary of Madness by Antonia Hylton: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

By Justin Reese

DISCLAIMER

 

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Madness by Antonia Hylton: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

Madness is a 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums in the United States. It tells the story of twelve Black men who were forced into a forest in 1911 to work as workers at the state's Hospital for the Negro Insane. The book blends personal stories with archival documents and investigative research to explore the mental health struggles of Black families and the secrecy that persisted for generations. The book explores how America's mental healthcare system treats Black people, tracing the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people's bodies and minds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jUSTIN REESE
• Release date: Jan 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224504060

Book preview

NOTE

This book celebrates oral history, highlighting the collective memory, experience, and soul of a community in America. It combines the testimony of over forty former patients and employees with records preserved at the Maryland State Archives, in the homes of former staff members, and newspaper reports from mainstream and historic Black-owned publications. The book is the culmination of ten years of digging through systems that should be more accessible to the public in the future. Researchers and interested members of the public cannot simply walk into Maryland State Archives and ask to see Crownsville Hospital's records, as they are restricted and carefully guarded. However, as the years pass, more of these documents should be made readily available to researchers and families.

Finding patients who were alive and able to speak on the record for this book was incredibly challenging. The author tried to lift up patient voices through the testimonies, poetry, and artwork they left behind, as well as the memories of people who loved them. In some cases, the names and individual characteristics of the patients have been changed to protect their privacy.

Lastly, the author spent three of the last ten years interviewing his own family members to be honest with readers about what shaped and motivated him.

INTRODUCTION

American Madness

The author recounts their experiences with a park, which they used to visit with their loved one, who had been suffering from mental illness. The park was a place of family and belonging, where they would enjoy the New England seasons and even see a gravestone for the first time. However, the park has become a neutral territory for familial negotiation, and the author wonders if every family with a loved one diagnosed with a mental illness has a place like this.

In winter 2021, the author's loved one returned from a long journey, and they were left without a psychiatrist or therapist. They were placed on a waiting list for an interview, fearing that their loved one might miss or misunderstand the information. The author felt desperate for their loved one to get better and wished there was a place where they could take their loved one for healing or rest.

The author's loved one believed they were being hunted by a group of white supremacists, and they had covered their windows with black gaffer's tape and unplugged their electronics. They were afraid to drive at night, and their neighbors had been recruited into the organization. The author felt crushed by the weight of knowing their loved one was about to turn away from them, carrying the belief that they had not done all they could.

The author feels compelled to write about the history of psychiatry and mental illness due to two forces: fury at the lack of services and support available in the country, particularly for the poor and people of color, and curiosity about the absence of help. They often hear that their sick family members have had more interactions with the criminal justice system than with social safety nets or hospitals, and that the more stressors, poverty, and violence they are subjected to, the less empathy they seem to receive from their neighbors.

The crisis of mental health in the United States is a growing concern, with an estimated one in five adults and one in six children experiencing mental illness annually. This has led to an increase in depression, suicidal ideation, and drug overdose rates. Many mental health services and therapists are not covered by Medicaid and public insurance. Physicians and psychiatrists have been warning that the suicide rate among minority youth has been rising, with Black children often experiencing immense stress and uncertainty. They often report more than five experiences of racial discrimination each day, facing higher barriers when trying to find providers who will take their insurance, and often feeling misunderstood by white doctors.

Black children who come to hospitals and emergency rooms during a mental health crisis often experience condescension and disrespect from emergency rooms to state-of-the-art facilities. Doctors often give them ambiguous diagnoses, leaving these institutions feeling discarded and the whole system upside down. The traumas and illnesses of Black people are often intertwined with American history and the peculiar reality of being Black.

Crownsville Hospital, formerly Maryland’s Hospital for the Negro Insane, was one of the few American segregated asylums with preserved records and a campus that stood. It was one of the few American segregated asylums with records that had been preserved and a campus that was still standing. Crownsville’s story runs deeper than one historical hospital in Maryland, it is about honoring generations of patients who were overlooked and mistreated, and the fight to make space for Black professionals in hospital systems.

As a journalist, the author hopes that Madness will help us understand both our current, broken mental healthcare system and our carceral one. At the heart of Crownsville lies a couple of questions: What is the difference between calling a Black patient incurable and deeming a Black population certain of criminal recidivism? And along the way, they ask doctors, patients, and family what they can do about it.

PART ONE

Breaking Ground

1911–1940

1911: 12 Patients

1940: 1,611 Patients

A Negro Asylum

William H. Murray, a pianist, teacher, and school principal, was a prominent figure in the Black community during the Civil War. He was incarcerated at Crownsville Hospital in 1917, where he faced segregated confinement and a belief that newfound freedom had increased the rates of insanity among Black people. Murray's behavior, which included violent mood swings and depression, led to his family's commitment to the facility.

Upon arrival, Murray was surrounded by 550 other Black patient-inmates, including men, women, and children. The hospital provided isolation for days, with many patients having no shoes and being forced to share them. During the First World War, Crownsville housed patients from various backgrounds, including the criminally insane and those diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Despite his dedication to academic excellence, Murray never returned to his Baltimore home or work. His daughter, Pauli Murray, later became a celebrated legal scholar and civil rights activist. In Baltimore, Black men like Murray were not expected to be successful, and many were forced to focus on their survival.

Racial violence in America during the years after Reconstruction led to a state of paranoia among Black people, fearing that any wrongdoing could lead to their death.

Maryland, a state that had never joined the Confederacy, did not outlaw slavery until 1864. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Maryland lawmakers passed resolutions that barred Black people from assembling for religious events, owning dogs or guns, or being educated, and limited job opportunities. This ban from self-protection, growth, and hope was a significant part of the state's history.

By the early twentieth century, Baltimore became the first state to legalize racial segregation, creating color lines in Maryland communities that still exist today. William Murray, the father of his wife Agnes, was a dedicated and ambitious mother who was a hands-on mother. In 1914, Agnes collapsed on the stairs, and William was left to care for her.

William Murray's family felt pressure to send him away and worried about