Ancestral Voices Rising Up: A Collage Series on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

In A Collage Series on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Obiora N. Anekwe chronicles the American tragedy of an unethical human experiment conducted on African American men. He gives the viewer a perspective of this human atrocity through the voice of art. As such, his collages speak to the ancestors of our past and transform the blues of an everyday people into a hope for human renewal. Obiora vividly reminds us all that the story of Tuskegee is one of remembrance, healing, and reconciliation (via Bookshop).

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The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

1932 – 1972

In 1932, 600 men were invited to participate in a research study with the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) to find a cure for syphilis. Participants were offered free medical care for their participation – and many participants, sharecroppers who had never had the chance to receive medical care before, signed up eagerly. Throughout their lifetime, men were monitored regularly by health officials and were assured they were being treated. But in reality, they were part of a sick experiment: the PHS was only watching to track the disease’s full progression untreated.

The men were told they had “bad blood” but not that they had syphilis. They were only given placebos, despite the fact that penicillin was widely available as a recommended treatment in 1947 (History). Researchers provided no effective care as the men “died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems” until an outraged researcher leaked the story to the press in 1972. Public criticism prompted the study to be shut down. By that time, 28 participants had died from the disease. One hundred more passed away from related complications, at least 40 spouses had been diagnosed with syphilis, and the disease had been passed to 19 children at birth (History).

This event, along with other acts of medical racism throughout history, has prompted the Black community to be distrustful of the healthcare system, particularly the elderly community. The reverberating impact of the Tuskegee Study, for example, is responsible for “over a third of the life expectancy gap between older black men and white men in 1980” (The Atlantic). As our nation grapples with a global pandemic and a chaotic vaccine distribution system, there needs to be more efforts to rebuilding trust to keeping those most vulnerable safe. We further analyzed the impact of medical racism in our other newsletter, Anti-Racism Daily, which you can read here.

Front and back cover of Ancestral Voices Rising Up: A Collage Series on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study by Obiora N. Anekwe, Ed.D, M.S., via Bookshop.

About the Author

Obiora N. Anekwe was born in Tuskegee Institute, Alabama on the campus of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital. A trained bioethicist, he blended his creative and scientific background for this work.

Reflection Questions

• How does historical medical mistrust affect our efforts to address COVID-19 today?
• What are other examples of public outrage sparking change within the past year?
• What privilege(s) may you benefit from that make it easier to trust the healthcare system? What parts of your identity make you less trustful of the healthcare system?

Learn More

• Interview: Harriet Washington, 16 minutes (YouTube)
• Interview: Harriet Washington, 42 minutes (YouTube)
• "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present” Book by Harriet Washington (Bookshop)
• “Miss Ever’s Boys” - A fictionalized account of Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Hulu, HBOMax)
• "Witness History" Podcast (BBC)