Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination

Conclusion: Race and Health in the Post–Civil Rights Era

[ 181 ] T he effects of the Black Panther Party’s health activism have been multiform, registering in the evolution of individual lives, in the ebb and flow of institutions, and in the persistent struggle for healthcare access. Many former Panthers continued their work on healthcare issues, with some remaining activists and others going on to careers in the medical professions, in public health administration, and in healthrelated community programs. Although the Seattle chapter’s break with the national group in 1972 was disheartening, Arthur Harris fully credits his time in the Party as inspiring his decision to become a nurse.1 Cleo Silvers, who advocated for patients’ rights and conducted door-todoor testing for sickle cell anemia and lead poisoning in New York City (with both the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Party) in later years directed Build a Better Bronx, an environmental justice community organization. At present, she is a community outreach director at a leading U.S. medical center.2 For Tolbert Small, involvement with the Party set him on his current path, serving as a bridge from his college activism as a Friend of SNCC to his present-day efforts to make medical care accessible. Small continues to practice medicine among the poor and working-class residents of Oakland, but he does so now at the Harriet Tubman Medical Office, a sliding-scale clinic he started in the 1980s.3 In addition to providing primary healthcare at his office, Small occasionally performs CONCLUSION Race and Health in the Post–Civil Rights Era [ 182 ] conclusion acupuncture—a skill learned when he toured China with a Black Panther Party contingent in 1972—in two treatment rooms in the lower level of the clinic dedicated to this purpose.4 He also serves on the board of the Coalition of Concerned Medical Professionals, a health rights organization ,5 and lectures widely, advocating for universal healthcare and railing against the inadequacies of the Medicare, Medicaid, and health maintenance organization systems. Norma Armour, who worked at the George Jackson PFMC between 1970 and 1974, remains dedicated to healthcare issues. After her time as a Panther, she studied health administration, with a focus on substance abuse issues, at a California college. Her career trajectory included a stint at the Watts Health Foundation and work as a manager for alcohol and drug abuse programs for an L.A.-area municipality. In the late 1980s she helped begin the University Muslim Medical Association clinic in Los Angeles. Armour today is a community instructor in that city’s Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science, where she advises health professionals on how to improve their communication and interactions with patients from the Watts community. In her words, this work is intended to “improve outcomes for our people and eliminate health disparities.” Armour notes with pride that she is “still doing the work I began over forty years ago.”6 Participation in the Black Panthers’ health politics also had a lasting effect on the future endeavors of Malik Rahim (formerly Donald Guyton). Rahim was the deputy of security for the New Orleans chapter of the Party.7 In 2005, in the wake of the federal government’s failure to ensure social welfare during Hurricane Katrina, Rahim played an essential role in helping restore services to Louisianans left abandoned in the city. Drawing on skills accumulated during his time in the Party, Rahim established, with two others, the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood.8 Linking his Panther past with his postKatrina activism, Rahim has commented that “most of the things that I do now [are] based upon those experiences.”9 He explained that “to start a health clinic or a first aid station [after Katrina] wasn’t anything because . . . we did [this] in the Panther Party.”10 In describing the human-made, state-exacerbated tragedy in New Orleans, Rahim invoked the familiar Black Panther health political language of government neglect, social exclusion—and, in response, “survival programs”: conclusion [ 183 ] Right after the hurricane, we came to the realization that the city wasn’t going to provide any services. . . . there was no medical entity even operating in Algiers, and it wasn’t operating especially for black folks. . . . I said to myself, “My God, these people just mean for us to die. . . . Man, it’s time for you to do whatever you got to do to survive.” . . . under that environment of...