Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: NAACP

  • Segregated people, segregated blood

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Are they afraid they’ll all turn black?Is that why our blood they lack?”1—From a poem by high school student Geraldyne Ghess In 1941, US leaders suspected that the country would soon be in a war “against a German aggressor, obsessed with ethnic purity and the racial symbolism of blood.”2 Unfortunately, much American…

  • Blood policies and bioart in the 1900s

    Christopher HubbardOhio, United States Policies related to blood that were adopted in the U.S. during the early to mid-1900s produced cultural and legal effects for certain populations. In 1920, for example, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was passed by Congress,1 which modified how identity classifications and boundaries would be drawn up. The act classified an…