Spreading the Gospel of Health: Tuskegee Institute and National Negro Health Week
Spreading the Gospel of Health: Tuskegee Institute and National Negro Health Week
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Date
1995
Authors
Smith, Susan
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Citation
Smith, Susan (1995) Spreading the Gospel of Health: Tuskegee Institute and National Negro Health Week. In: Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Black Women's Health Activism in America, 1890-1950. Studies in Health, Illness, and Caregiving . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, p. 33.
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Abstract
In the early twentieth century the health reform efforts of black club women became part of a national black health movement. In 1915 Booker T. Wash- ington, the most powerful black leader of his time, launched a health educa- tion campaign known as National Negro Health Week from Tuskegee In- stitute in Alabama. Washington, as founder and head of the school, had long emphasized sanitation and hygiene in his educational work. However, that year he set in motion a health campaign that would grow into a nation- wide black health movement over the next thirty-five years. For black lead- ers and community organizers, National Negro Health Week campaigns provided a way to advance the race through the promotion of black health education and cooperation across racial lines.