Through Afro-Indigenous, familial, health-centered programming, Abundant Black Health aspires to increase the number of:
At Abundant Black Health we know our programming is vital since for centuries Black People have been navigating health crises due to the U.S. healthcare industry's addiction to treating Black People in ways that are often beyond belief and human compassion.
The following are a few examples:
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James Marion Sims/once praised as the "father of gynecology" conducted shockingly brutal procedures on enslaved Black Women named Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy;
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Enslaved Black People's bodies were used for medical experiments after they died, despite widespread belief at the time that maintaining the body’s integrity after death was religiously necessary;
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Regarding Ms. Henrietta Lacks – a Black Woman who was treated unsuccessfully for cervical cancer in 1951 – medical professionals kept a sample of her tissue and Ms. Lacks cells (the HeLa immortalized cell line) provided a breakthrough that has proven invaluable to medical research though her family was kept in the dark;
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In the Tuskegee Experiment (1932-1972) the U.S. Public Health Service conducted an experiment for four decades during which proven remedies were kept from syphilis patients in Alabama, all of whom were Black Men;
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In North Carolina in the 1960s, Black Women were 65% of all sterilizations of women, even though they were only 25% of the population – one Black Woman who was a victim of a forced hysterectomy during this time was Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer who was a renowned activist in the Civil Right Movement.
Further, the U.S. health care industry’s continued failure to appropriately care for Black patients is well-documented:
- disproportionately high Black infant and maternal death rates,
- lack of access to quality health care,
- lack of access to medical industry jobs,
- unequal access to pain medications based in the assumption that Black People have a higher tolerance for pain,
- a host of disproportionate negative health outcomes for Black People,
- racial bias and discrimination among medical practitioners,
- Black People having the lowest life expectancy of any major group in the U.S.A.,
- regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, Black People have experienced higher rates of COVID-19 infection and death compared to white people.
Given the aforementioned atrocities and numerous others, Abundant Black Health encourages the entire U.S. healthcare system – as well as all entities and individuals who care deeply about ensuring health and wellness for all people – to give generously to Abundant Black Health in acknowledgement of the fact that broader medical reparations to Black People from the U.S. broadly and the U.S. medical system specifically are long overdue. Also Abundant Black Health encourages the entire U.S. healthcare system – as well as all entities and individuals who care deeply about ensuring health and wellness for all people – to collaborate with Abundant Black Health in developing creative, economic justice-based, medical reparations approaches toward developing an egalitarian, caring, healthy and just medical system. Additionally, Abundant Black Health encourages all employers to provide their Black employees with utopian full-body medical coverage.
Are you a white ally or accomplice ...
who aspires to GIVE in acknowledgement of the need for national medical reparations?