A review by carolynf
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

4.0

This was the most disturbing history book that I've read in a looong time. First it discusses the horrible medical experiments conducted on slaves in antebellum days, some of which make those Nazi experiments look like nothing at all. Then it moves into the experiments and graverobbing that free African Americans were more vulnerable to, due to poverty and racism. Then it wraps up with the examples of racist medical practices in the modern day plus medical abuses practiced in prisons, which are disproportionately populated by African Americans. Not a fun read by any means but an interesting side of American History that I had only been partially aware of previously.