Dying in the City of the Blues (Part 3)

Although sickle cell anemia up until the mid-twentieth century had caused nothing but problems for the African American community, in the 1960s when St. Jude was opening up, sickle cell anemia research desegregated part of Memphis. Because some Memphians “sought to subsume issues of race to broader communal goals of children’s health,” St. Jude was designed as one space for all races to get medical treatment (153). Local business around St. Jude was also encouraged to be desegregated because African Americans needed to be served and taken care of in the surrounding area. Without “segregated wards, bathrooms, or dining services,” people were forced to mingle together. Not only did this help expose people to new people and experiences they would not ordinarily have, but it also challenged the notion that African Americans were inherently dirty.

                Because officials now were promoting the idea that it was okay to be in the same vicinity as another race, they attempted to change the original image of African Americans that they had encouraged. From depicting African American women with flies around them in the 1920s, to creating a desegregated space in the 1960s, Memphis’s health officials really were dynamic. One aspect that had influenced the uncharacteristic non-racist attitude is the effect of “liberal-minded outsiders” (153). Outsiders like Don Pinkel, “St. Jude’s first director and a newcomer to Memphis from Buffalo,” were called to Memphis to help establish St. Jude (154). With them, they brought ideas and views from the North which illustrates how Memphis gained national attention for itself because people were willing to come from allover to work in Memphis.