QIANA HASBERRY

Participants at a Village HeartBEAT workout session in 2021. Village HeartBEAT is a health partnership initiative between Mecklenburg County Health Department and local churches to reduce the risk of heart disease.

The Rev. Janet Garner-Mullins remembers growing up in Charlotte during the Jim Crow era.

The Brooklyn neighborhood was “a city within a city” and home to more than 1,000 Black residents. Garner-Mullins, 67, grew up in a thriving Black community despite segregated hospitals, stores, restaurants, drug stores, and churches.

As a girl, Garner-Mullins didn’t understand why she couldn’t go to one of the better hospitals in town whenever she became sick.

“I remember one time I was ill, and my mother took me [to Good Samaritan Hospital],” she said. “And I asked her why we couldn't go to the other hospital and so with crocodile tears in her eyes, she said, ‘We just can't go there.’ She never answered me as to why we couldn't go there because of the color of our skin.”

Good Samaritan was the first private hospital in North Carolina built to treat Black residents.

History seems to be repeating itself with 21% of Black people in Mecklenburg County not having a personal doctor, according to the 2021 Mecklenburg County Public Health Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey. Thirteen percent don’t have health insurance and do not go to the doctor because of the cost. In the survey, 19% of Blacks also said they could not see a dentist because of the expense.

Much hasn’t changed in the scarcity of Black doctors – or the disproportionate impact of maladies that affect people of color.

“The average length of life [for Blacks in Mecklenburg] is 77.2 years compared to whites in Mecklenburg County at 82.6 years,” said Dr. Kimberly Scott, assistant health director for population health at the county health department. “So that's roughly six years difference in lifespan between African Americans and whites in this county.”

Legacy of health care gaps
Epidemiologists at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found Jim Crow laws continue to negatively impact African Americans’ health more than 50 years after government-sanctioned segregation was outlawed.

Among women diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.S., Black women had a greater risk of developing that form if they lived in a historically segregated state. In the study, there was an increase in Black women only, with the highest number of cases from those born before 1965.

“Understanding health in the United States requires grappling with the history of the country,” said social epidemiology professor Nancy Krieger, who conducted the study.  “You carry your history with you in your body.”

With health disparities still impacting Black communities, the health department is working to narrow the gap.

Obesity remains a problem, with about 33% of Black and Hispanic residents reporting they are overweight, while about 48% of Blacks reported obesity. Compared to Blacks, obesity rates were slightly higher in white residents at 37%.

Village HeartBEAT (Building Education & Accountability Together) works with faith-based organizations to reduce the risk of heart disease.

“There's a statistically significant weight loss amongst participants who are a part of specifically the Village HeartBEAT Challenge program, which includes the competition team challenge,” said Scott, who oversees the initiative.

Village HeartBeat has helped to reduce obesity from 70% to 65% and smoking from 17% to 14% in the county, according to information on the program’s website.
Scott added that the program has seen an increase in participants despite the pandemic.

Another area of concern for health officials is infant mortality rates, where about 10 Black babies die per 1,000 live births compared to 4 deaths per 1,000 births among white babies.

Qualified and underrepresented
In the early 1900s, Black physicians began migrating to Charlotte for a better life, whether it was to start their own private practice or work for Good Samaritan Hospital, the only hospital where Blacks could work in the city. It launched a rich history of prominent Black medical professionals who desegregated white medical societies and hospitals during Jim Crow.

For instance, in 1952, Dr. Emery Rann Jr. was the first African American physician admitted to the Mecklenburg County Medical Society after years of membership denying membership to them. Back then, doctors of color had no choice but to be resilient.

“Around the turn of the 1910s, there were probably 30,000 African Americans in the city,” said Willie Griffin, assistant professor of public history at UNC Charlotte. “But maybe four or five black doctors for 30,000 people and then you have around four or five public health nurses.”

As more Black nurses began practicing in the city, many white doctors started to complain and questioned whether they were qualified for the job.

“Black doctors were not any less qualified than white doctors,” said Tom Hanchett, historian at Levine Museum of the New South.

Jim Crow care
Healthcare was scarce for Blacks during Jim Crow because they were not allowed to be treated by white doctors or admitted to whites-only hospitals for care.

Good Samaritan Hospital was built in 1891 founded by Jane Wilkes, who used money raised by St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to officially open the hospital in 1903.

One well-known nurse at Good Samaritan hospital was Thereasea Clark Elder, who faced many obstacles caring for Black patients and later whites who hurled insults at her. Elder, who died in 2021 at 93 years of age, was Mecklenburg’s first African American public health nurse. 

To honor Elder, the health department created the Thereasea Clark Elder Community Health Leadership Academy, which supports participants in the VillageHeartBEAT program through health education, training, and other resources. There is also Thereasea Clark Elder Neighborhood Park in Charlotte.

Between underfunding, poor medical equipment compared to white hospitals and staff shortages, Blacks hesitated to be admitted to Good Samaritan.
“They didn't want to go because they had this stigma that if you go there, you're not coming back,” Garner-Mullins said.

With limited access to healthcare, Black Charlotteans mostly leaned on home remedies and drug stores to treat non-emergency ailments. One remedy was castor oil, which was used mostly as a laxative to treat stomachache.

“[My mother] would give you this stuff that's from the pharmacy called castor oil,” Garner-Mullins explained. You would drink that terrible castor oil and she would say “now that is going to clean you out.”

Good Samaritan closed in 1982 and was converted into Magnolia Rest Home. In 1995, the hospital was torn down to make way for Bank of America Stadium.

Aaliyah Bowden, who covers health at The Post, is a Report For America corps member.

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