Jack Geiger Collection on the Delta Health Center, 1946-2016

Collection Number: 05699

Collection Title: Jack Geiger Collection on the Delta Health Center, 1946-2016

This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.

Expand/collapse Collection Overview

Size	6.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 2460 items)
Abstract	The Jack Geiger Collection is an assemblage of documents and audio recordings that were used in the research for and writing of Thomas J. Ward, Jr.'s Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty (Oxford University Press, 2016). The collection chronicles the administrative history of the Delta Health Center in the historically black township of Mound Bayou, Miss., its initiatives especially the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative and improved sanitation, and conflicts with Mississippi's medical community and white political power structure. Collection materials offer insight on the community health center movement, community organizing, community health councils, public and environmental health, and the impact of systemic racism on public health. Other topics include malnutrition, food insecurity, infant mortality, elder care, sharecropping, Mississippi's plantation-based agriculture, housing in rural Mississippi, recruitment and retention of medical staff for the rural community health center, mental health, segregated healthcare, civil rights, leadership in the African American community, and African American fraternal orders. Also included are documents and audio recordings pertaining to a second community health center, now named the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center, that was founded in the same time period and located in the predominantly low income neighborhood of Columbia Point in Boston, Mass. The Addition of April 2018 contains a short documentary film on the Delta Health Center made by student filmmaker, Judy Schader Rogers, in the fall of 1969 and winter of 1970.
Creator	Geiger, Jack, 1925-
Curatorial Unit	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.
Language	English

Expand/collapse Information For Users

Restrictions to Access: Use of audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to Use: No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice: Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation: [Identification of item], in the Jack Geiger Collection on the Delta Health Center #5699, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information: Received from Dr. H. Jack Geiger through Thomas J. Ward, Jr., in August 2016 (Acc. 102634) and directly from Dr. H. Jack Geiger in March 2017 (Acc. 103046) and April 2018 (Acc. 103349).

Sensitive Materials Statement: Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Expand/collapse Processing Information

Processed by: Laura Hart, November 2016 and May 2017; Anne Wells, July 2018

Encoded by: Laura Hart, November 2016

Updated by: Anne Wells, July 2018; Nancy Kaiser, January 2021

Other processing information: Thirty-two audio recordings in this collection were originally made on open reel tapes, which were digitized in 2007 before the collection was donated to the Library. The Library does not hold the original open reel tapes, but the digitized recordings are available for use. Each recording has a tape log compiled by the donor that identifies the speakers and describes the contents and topics addressed. The tape log is transcribed below the listing of a recording.

Expand/collapse Subject Headings

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

Expand/collapse Related Collections

Expand/collapse Historical Information

The Delta Health Center opened in the rural, African American township of Mound Bayou in Bolivar County, Miss., in 1966. At the time of its founding, it was named the Tufts-Delta Health Center, and it was later known as the Delta Community Health Center, the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and Delta Health Center, Delta Community Hospital and Health Center, Inc., and finally the Delta Health Center, Inc. The Delta Health Center was federally funded first through Tufts University and later through the State University of New York at Stony Brook and supported by grants from federal programs, particularly those administered through the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Department of Health and Human Services. One of the first community health centers in the United States, it serves Bolivar, Coahoma, Sunflower, and Washington counties, where poverty is widespread. The comprehensive community or neighborhood health center model sought to augment traditional clinical health services by addressing the underlying causes of illness, including economic, environmental, and social factors and living conditions.

Funding for the center was initially secured in 1965 from the Office of Economic Opportunity by two Tufts University physicians, Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson. As a founding member of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, Geiger had served as field coordinator and medical director for several civil rights efforts in the American South, with which Gibson was also involved, including Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches in 1965. While providing medical care for civil rights workers, Geiger was exposed to the extreme poverty and ill health that plagued local residents of the rural South. As a medical student in the late 1950s, Geiger had studied social medicine with Sidney Kark and Emily Kark in the community health centers of rural Natal, South Africa. Geiger wanted to bring that community health model to the United States in order to serve impoverished communities, like those in Mississippi and elsewhere. Working with Tufts University, Geiger approached Sandy Kravitz and Sargent Shriver of the newly formed Office of Economic Opportunity with his proposal to start a center, and was able to secure enough funding to go ahead with the project. The original grant also provided for a similar community health center in the predominantly low income Columbia Point neighborhood in Boston, Mass. (now the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center).

The two centers at Columbia Point and Mound Bayou were a part of the Tufts Comprehensive Community Health Action Program, aimed at intervening in the cycle of extreme poverty, ill health, unemployment, and illiteracy through comprehensive health services. Jack Geiger served as the project director, and John W. Hatch, also of Tufts University, served as the director of community health action. Clinical work at the Delta Health Center began in November 1967. Initially, patients were served in a converted church parsonage. In 1968, the center moved into a new facility, a renovation of an unfinished structure that was originally built to serve as the new location for J. P. Campbell College of Jackson, Miss.

In addition to standard clinical health services, the Delta Health Center provided other services aimed at remedying the poor social, economic, and environmental conditions that were the cause of many health problems in their service area. Delta Health Center staff dug water wells and installed pumps, built privies, dug drainage ditches, and repaired and provided screens for homes. The center established the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, headed by John W. Hatch and social worker L. C. Dorsey, in order to provide food security and economic assistance for the local community. The cooperative later included a cannery, aimed at selling canned green beans, black-eyed peas, and other southern staples or "soul food" to African Americans who had migrated to northern cities. The Afro-American Bookstore started under the cooperative. The center supported transportation, nutrition, and supplemental food programs. Educational activities at the Delta Health Center included training local residents as community health assistants, conducting analytic research, hosting summer internship programs for visiting medical students, and hosting the Systematic Training and Redevelopment (STAR) Program.

The North Bolivar County Health and Civic Improvement Council served as the governing body for the Delta Heath Center. Comprised of ten local health associations, the Health Council was established in 1968 to ensure that local residents were directly involved in the center and engaged in efforts to raise health standards and improve employment rates, housing conditions, and economic security. In 1971 the Office of Economic Opportunity demanded the merger of the Delta Health Center and the Mound Bayou Community Hospital. The Mound Bayou Community Hospital had been formed in the late 1960s from the failing Taborian and Sara Brown Memorial Hospitals run by African American fraternal orders. Despite resistance by Delta Health Center directors, the two entities merged in 1972 to form the Delta Community Hospital and Health Center, Inc. A separate board of directors was formed as a part of the merger, and this board replaced the North Bolivar County Health and Civic Improvement Council as the governing body.

This note was adapted from the historical note written for the Delta Health Center Records (04613)

Expand/collapse Scope and Content

The collection of Jack Geiger, physician and an early leader in the community health center movement, is an assemblage of documents and audio recordings that were used in the research for and writing of Thomas J. Ward, Jr.'s Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty (Oxford University Press, 2016). Ward's historical monograph tells the story of the Tufts-Delta Health Center, later the Delta Health Center, founded in the historically black township of Mound Bayou, Miss., in the middle of the Mississippi Delta. The Health Center opened in 1966 under the auspices of Tufts University and the leadership of Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson. Initially funded by the newly established Office of Economic Opportunity under Sargent Shriver, the Health Center sought to serve the impoverished African American community of rural Bolivar County, Miss., by providing comprehensive medical care and addressing the social and environmental conditions that affect the region's public health.

Collection materials include correspondence, memoranda, newspaper clippings, reports, articles, scholarly papers, printed items, audio recordings of interviews with Health Center staff and Mound Bayou residents, meeting minutes and recorded proceedings, and typescript narratives by and biographical information about three of the Delta Health Center's instrumental figures, L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger, and John W. Hatch.

The collection chronicles the Health Center's administrative history, reveals the Health Center's conflicts with Mississippi's white political power structure and the local medical community, and documents Health Center's initiatives, particularly the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, job training for medical support staff and sanitarians, and extensive sanitation work led by its environmental health director Andrew James.

Collection materials offer insight on community organizing, community participation and representation in health councils, and the impact of systemic racism on public health. Other topics addressed in the collection materials are malnutrition, food insecurity, infant mortality, elder care, sharecropping, housing in rural Mississippi, recruitment and retention of medical staff for a community health center, mental health in the shadow of poverty and racism, segregated healthcare, civil rights, leadership in the African American community, and African American fraternal orders.

Also included are documents and audio recordings pertaining to a second community health center, now named the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center, that was founded in the same time period and located in the predominantly low income neighborhood of Columbia Point in Boston, Mass.

The Addition of March 2017 contains materials similar to those found in the original deposit.

The Addition of April 2018 contains a short documentary film on the Delta Health Center made by student filmmaker, Judy Schader Rogers, in the fall of 1969 and winter of 1970. Titled, Out in the Rural: A Health Center in Mississippi, the film documents the broad vision of a community health center involved in far more than traditional medical diagnosis and treatment, as well as the faces, crops, and living conditions of the poor, African American, and rural community who lived in Mound Bayou, Miss. at the time. The collection contains a 16mm moving image print of the film, as well as a digitized access copy made from the film print.

Arrangement of Collection

Series 1. Delta Health Center and Columbia Point, 1963-2009 and undated

Correspondence, 1966-1981 and undated
Meetings, 1966-1992 and undated
Audio recordings of meetings, 1965-1967 and undated
Environmental Health, 1969-1971 and undated
North Bolivar Farmer Cooperative, 1966-1972 and undated
Reports, Papers, and Congressional Testimony 1963-2009 and undated
Court Papers, 1990-1994 and undated
Personnel, 1966-1994 and undated

Series 2. Mound Bayou, Miss., Hospitals and Healthcare, 1966-1993

"Struggles," 1966-1969 and undated
"Takeover Attempt," 1966-1970 and undated
"Forced Merger" and the Mound Bayou Community Hospital 1966-1984 and undated

Series 3. Towns and Counties in the Delta and the State of Mississippi, 1946-2005 and undated

Series 4. Research, Scholarship, and Writings, 1941-2014 and undated

Archival Research, circa 2005-2006 and undated
Historical Scholarship, 1973-2011 and undated
Public Health Scholarship, 1941-2014 and undated
Narratives, 1996, 2006, and undated

Series 5. L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger, and John W. Hatch, 1963-2013 and undated

L.C. Dorsey, 1970-2013 and undated
Jack Geiger, 1963-2013 and undated
John W. Hatch, 1992 and undated

Series 6. Interviews and Conversations, 1966-2002 and undated

Transcripts, 1966-2002
Audio Recordings, 1966-2002 and undated

Series 7. Correspondence, Printed Materials, and Other Papers, 1947-2016 and undated (Addition of March 2017)

Series 8. Out in the Rural: Documentary Film on Delta Health Center, 1970 (Addition of April 2018)

Processing Note

The original files established by the donor Jack Geiger were retained though they have been rehoused in archival folders. In some cases, the donor's file labels or folder titles (e.g., "Struggle with Mound Bayou Mafia") were retained. Where retained, the donor's original file and folder titles are indicated by quotation marks. Many files are accompanied by explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. Although most of the material is original, some items are copies of documents contained in the Delta Health Center Records (04613). These copies are frequently annotated with notes, explanations, and highlighting, most of which were likely made by Geiger.

Contents list

Expand/collapse Series Quick Links

1. Delta Health Center and Columbia Point, 1963-2009 and undated.
2. Mound Bayou, Miss., Hospitals and Healthcare, 1966-1993.
3. Towns and Counties in the Delta and the State of Mississippi, 1946-2005 and undated.
4. Research, Scholarship, and Writings, 1941-2014 and undated.
5. L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger, and John W. Hatch, 1963-2013 and undated.
6. Interviews and Conversations, 1966-2002 and undated.
7. Correspondence, Printed Materials, and Other Papers, 1947-2016 and undated (Addition of March 2017).
8. Out in the Rural: Documentary Film on Delta Health Center, 1970 (Addition of April 2018).

Expand/collapse Series 1. Delta Health Center and Columbia Point, 1963-2009 and undated.

Approximately 1000 items.

Correspondence, meeting minutes, agendas, transcribed proceedings, audio recordings, newspaper clippings, reports and congressional testimony, court papers, and personnel files comprise the series. Materials pertain to the community health centers in the historically black township of Mound Bayou, Miss., and the Columbia Point neighborhood in Boston, Mass. The two health centers were established under the auspices of Tufts University in the mid 1960s under the leadership of physicians and social justice activists Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson, and they were initially funded by the newly created Office of Economic Opportunity headed by Sargent Shriver. Documents reflect the social, political, and economic climate of the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s and 1970s and the enduring impact of systemic racism on public health and social welfare particularly for the African American population in the region.

Correspondence, 1966-1981 and undated.

Materials are letters, memoranda, and items enclosed with or attached to the correspondence that pertain chiefly to the Health Center's operations, its relationship to the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the community of Mound Bayou, Miss., and the staff at the Health Center. Other topics include municipal services and sanitation projects in Bolivar and surrounding counties and other townships, the local government, and the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority's charitable service work in the Mississippi Delta. Correspondence also offers a glimpse at the complex racial and class hierarchies in Mound Bayou, Miss., and the surrounding area chiefly from the perspective of Jack Geiger.

Folder 1	Correspondence, 1966-1969 Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger and an annotated copy of an article titled "Healthcare in the Mississippi Delta."
Folder 2	Correspondence, 1968-1969 Letters pertain chiefly to publicity for the Tufts-Delta Health Center.
Folder 3	"Office of Economic Opportunity," 1968-1970 Chiefly correspondence and minutes of a 1968 Health Center physicians meeting. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger.
Folder 4	"Community," 1968-1977 Correspondence pertaining to the Health Council, community development, municipal services in Mound Bayou, Miss., and the local population. Of interest is a 6 March 1969 letter from Jack Geiger to civil rights and social justice activist Howard W. Hallman with the Civic Action Institute. Geiger writes, "The Blacks on the staff and advisory committees of the Bolivar County CAP are carefully selected toms and I am skeptical that there is any meaningful representation whatsoever of the impoverished Black community...the existing Black middle-class conservative power structure tends to be put to use by the dominant white power structure for purposes such as this. Thereby serving the needs of both: The whites to maintain control, and the middle-class Blacks to maintain their relative status, power, control of the action and possible exploitation of others (the rural poor) within the Black community."
Folder 5	Correspondence, 1969 Letters pertain to the local government structure of Mound Bayou, Miss., municipal codes, and local business and development opportunities.
Folder 6	Memorandum from John W. Hatch to Andrew James, 30 January 1970 Document pertains to the training and education needs of Tufts-Delta Health Center staff
Folder 7	Memorandum from Jack Geiger to "The Files," 17 November 1971 "Summary of a Telephone Conversation with Judy Ludinsky of the University of Wisconsin."
Folder 8	Letter from Jack Geiger to Christian M. Hansen, 18 November 1971 Includes an explanatory note written by Jack Geiger.
Folder 9	Correspondence, February-November 1971 Annotated copies of letters in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Folder 10	Correspondence, December 1971-1972 Annotated copies of letters in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Folder 11	Memorandum from Jack Geiger to Tufts-Delta Health Center staff, 8 February 1972 Includes an explanatory note written by Jack Geiger.
Folder 12	Unsigned letter to Jack Geiger, 29 December 1975 "We as citizens of Mound Bayou + some of us as patients of the Health Center have launched two seemingly ineffective petitions in protest of the termination of Dr. Gough…one of the few people of administrative position at the Health Center who not only had the medical interest of us people + our children at heart, but was also interested in our day-to-day well-being."
Folder 13	Correspondence, 1980-1981 Letters pertain to Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority's support for sanitation projects in Rosedale, Miss., and Gunnison, Miss. Includes explanatory note written by Jack Geiger.

Meetings, 1966-1992 and undated.

Materials are minutes, agendas, and transcribed proceedings for meetings of various Health Center and civic committees. Topics addressed include budgets, Health Center staff recruitment and retention, Mound Bayou Community Hospital and the merger with the Health Center, environmental health concerns particularly water and sanitation, and supplemental food programs and the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative.

Folder 14	Planning meetings for Tufts-Delta Health Center, 1967 Minutes of meetings discussing aides and other Tufts-Delta Health Center employees including sanitation aides and licensed practical nurses (LPN).
Folder 15	Tufts-Delta Health Center executive committee, 1967-1969 Incomplete set of minutes. Discussion topics recorded in the minutes include a prefabricated facility for the Center, application for HUD's Model City program, possibility of a factory opening in Mound Bayou, budget, staff recruitment, and childcare for the Center's staff.
Folder 16	"Cooperation and Coordination Meeting," October 1968 Minutes and transcription of proceedings from the two-day, joint meeting of Mound Bayou Community Hospital and Tufts-Delta Health Center. Discussion topics recorded in the transcription include medical records, medical and eligibility standards, x-rays, staff privileges and rotations, emergency and operating services, and hospital facilities.
Folder 17	Temporary Health Planning Council, 1968 Agenda and minutes. Topics on the agenda include funding for building and fixing houses, county water, sewer service, and transportation.
Folder 18	North Bolivar County Health and Civic Improvement Council, Inc., 1970 Contains minutes.
Folder 19	Tufts-Delta Health Center executive committee, 1970 Discussion topics recorded in the minutes pertain to the Mound Bayou community and to the health center's medical services, funding, budgets, staff, and auxiliary programs including sanitation, training and education, supplemental food, the farm cooperative, elder care, and daycare for children. Of interest in the 26 February 1970 minutes is a short section titled "Therapeutic Abortion." A physician reported: "The decision of the medical staff was that the doctor would tell a patient where to go for help in cases, the procedures that had to be followed, but that members of our staff would not be involved beyond this giving of information."
Folder 20	Tufts-Delta Health Center board of directors, 1970 Minutes pertain to the bank chosen for the Center's funds.
Folder 21	Staff meeting, 29 September 1971 Annotated copy of minutes in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Folder 22	Delta Health Center board of directors, 1992 Includes agendas and minutes.

Audio recordings of meetings, 1965-1967 and undated.

Audio recordings of meetings and presentations pertain to the Health Center, the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Community Action Program (CAP), the Mound Bayou, Miss., community, the local government and power structure, the local medical community including the African American fraternal orders' Taborian and Sarah Brown hospitals, the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, and the community health center in the Columbia Point neighborhood of Boston, Mass. Speakers include Jack Geiger, John W. Hatch, Joanne Bluestone, Count D. Gibson, and L.C. Dorsey.

Topics include poverty in Mound Bayou, Miss., the "feudalistic society" in Mississippi Delta, race and class in Mound Bayou, community participation and representation in community health centers, Meharry Medical College, medical education, segregation in medical facilities, role of black hospitals in offering dignity to African Americans seeking healthcare, incompetent and unethical local physicians, the political necessity of disassociating the Health Center from the Civil Rights Movement, local and state politics and political office holders, economic impact of the Health Center, home remedies, infant mortality, malnutrition, abortion, mental health, and health insurance.

Digital Folder DF-05699/4	"Geiger, Goss, Gaddison," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-04 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Jack Geiger: Addresses question "is project replicable?" Goss: Home visits by nurses: Importance of understanding family relationships, family breakdown and tailoring services accordingly. Gaddison: Effects of farming mechanization. Gaddison: Memories of growing up on sharecropping plantation, economic changes and pressures. Gaddison: Assuming responsibilities as head of household after mother's health failed. Gaddison: Recalls first experience with TDHC, meeting nurse Jo Disparti, explaining problems accessing health care. Gaddison: Compares own experience in poverty with that of urban poor. Gaddison: Personal understanding of how environmental factors impact health. Gaddison: Joining community board as person of "low education" and "faith." Gaddison: What inspires residents to get involved with unpaid volunteer board.
Digital Folder DF-05699/12	"Bluestone, OEO presentation," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-02 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Updates from Jack Geiger: negotiations with Mississippi power structure [and] with Mound Bayou power structure. Updates from Jack Geiger: Gave copy of grant proposal to Dean Marston at University of Mississippi. Updates from Jack Geiger: Dean Marston communicates with Dr. Gray. Updates from Jack Geiger: Letter from Dr. Gray to Dean Marston asking not to support "northern invaders." Updates from Jack Geiger: Meeting at AMA Clinical Meeting in Philadelphia. Updates from Jack Geiger: Jackson Daily News gets hold of story. Both parties angry at other. Updates from Jack Geiger: Panola County as Red Herring, meeting with Bolivar County Community Action Board. Updates from Jack Geiger: Jackson meeting with State Medical Associations and Dr. Gray, establish own professionalism and quiet civil rights fears (Very similar to Sy Bellin conversation, Reel 5_03). John W. Hatch: discusses Mound Bayou, facilities, families, hospitals, desperate circumstances. John W. Hatch: Accessible care, prevention, screening non-existent. John W. Hatch: Denial on part of black elites in Mound Bayou. John W. Hatch: Whites' enlightened self interest not even working. John W. Hatch: How the poor feel. Little anger or perception of unfairness. Joanne Bluestone: from Columbia Point. Work with mothers, women raising families alone. Joanne Bluestone: High incidence of chronic illness. Joanne Bluestone: Benefits of having clinic nearby. Joanne Bluestone: Problems with pharmacy service in Columbia Point. Joanne Bluestone: Description of residents' social and medical problems and concerns. Joanne Bluestone: Group discussions about issues at Columbia Point.
Digital Folder DF-05699/14	"Geiger and Gibson speak to staff," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-04 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Dr. Gibson: OEO and Community Action Program (CAP) promise: Washington would respond to what a community said its needs were rather than imposed from above. Dr. Gibson: ABCD's role, as Community Action Agent in Columbia Point's project. Dr. Gibson: Columbia Point Development Council as one of Boston's Area Planning and Action Committees (APACs). Dr. Gibson: Because of complexity of running health services (versus recreational activities, for example), APAC delegates responsible for running project. Dr. Gibson: History of Geiger and Gibson's first encounters with OEO bureaucracy. Dr. Gibson: Original, ad hoc Columbia Point Health Association established prior to health center's opening. Dr. Gibson: Once center opens, Health Association feels disillusioned, unsure of role or purpose. Dr. Gibson: Health Association gets incorporated. Dr. Gibson: Grant renewal in '67 largely because of interest in new Health Center/Health Association relationship. Dr. Gibson: What does community participation and representation in a health center mean and not mean. Dr. Gibson: Limits of Health association's hiring and firing. Dr. Gibson: "We dispense a service; Health Center is not a business!" Must be non-profit, ethical, responsive to community. Dr. Gibson: Grievance Committee for patients to air legitimate concerns and complaints; comprised of representatives from Health Association and Health Center. Dr. Geiger: Set of underlying conflicts built in: 1) Commitment to community control, participation, but what does maximum feasible participation mean, and who determines it? 2) Conflict between desire to run things and having managerial capacities/technical abilities to do so. Colonial argument to keep saying "people aren't ready yet." Dr. Geiger: Basic ways in which medical professionals trained to relate to patients are ones which professionals are in control, patients are passive and dependent. Dr. Geiger: "Need to look past the lesion and toward the patient. Then look past the patient and look at family. Then look past the family and look at community." Dr. Geiger: "We'd be much more comfortable if they had pain and lay down and related to us in that way." New relationships when working with patients, "because they're not even behaving sick, let alone grateful."
Digital Folder DF-05699/15	"John Hatch's 10-day trip to Mississippi," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-05 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Challenges at Taborian. Nursing home unsuitable (2 murders), Mound Bayou history. Students from Meharry come to Taborian for observation and supervision. Senior Medical Students end up running clinic while Dr. Lowry (chief of staff at Taborian, alcoholic, irresponsible practitioner) collects the fees. Not all patients are poor--middle class blacks choose Taborian to avoid humiliating experience of going to a segregated (though better quality) hospital. Medical students from Meharry don't necessarily want to be there. Proposed merger between Sarah Brown and Taborian; joint board mostly composed of wealthier people, including two whites. Recommendation for improved board election processes. Sense of threat a new project creates for exorbitant physician salaries and poorly functioning institutions. Dr. Burton welcoming of civil rights workers, but also very self-interested, worried about financial competition. Idea from Count [Gibson] to interview Burton's predecessor, Dr. Howard a mix of altruistic and greedy and corrupt. Next steps: observe, assess community health and problems, talk with people about the proposal. Importance of not associating selves too strongly with Tufts or the civil rights movement. Personal feelings of frustration at extent of human suffering, inability to access resources. Next step: support merger while limiting power of incompetent doctors. Health center facility and housing issues. Time will be scarce, will need to set up health services quickly: anticipating pressures from OEO, blockage attempts by state.
Digital Folder DF-05699/16	"John Hatch's Washington Report," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-06 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): History of Campbell College, incomplete construction. Chairman of Board of Trustees was deacon of church; successful meeting, bishop came to Mound Bayou. Meetings with Lowry (Taborian Hospital) and Burton (Sarah Brown Hospital). Meeting with Lowry and intern. Meeting with Burton, not very enthusiastic, concerned with own economic well-being. Meeting with powerful people of Mound Bayou, explained goals of project, sought their goodwill. Burton's request for use of future clinic's facilities. Even if lacking in quality, black hospitals are important, people treated with dignity. History and governmental structure of Mound Bayou. Different levels in terms of Mound Bayou contact with white community. Some Mound Bayou members challenging white power structure of civil rights workers, lower on totem pole, mostly the have-nots. Have to "do business" with both haves and have-nots, walk middle of road, avoid being compromised by either. Geiger trip to Mound Bayou-Bolivar County Community Action Board, cautious reception. Count [Gibson] and Jack [Geiger] to Jackson, felt Holiday Inn was bugged. Meeting with State Medical Association, Archie Gray's attacks. Gray challenge: Why Tufts, rather than a southern school? Relevance of religion to the perpetuation of segregation. Count [Gibson] and Hatch to Jackson, felt Holiday Inn was bugged. Concerns about how to help staff handle emotional toll. Ask Gibson: what do you do at Columbia Point to handle powerful opponents?
Digital Folder DF-05699/17	"John Hatch's Southern Report," 1 April 1966 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-07 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Recent trips to Georgia and Mississippi getting to know local people and problems, "Level of deprivation so stark that it's purely academic to talk about [which state] needs more." Characteristics of Mississippi vs. Georgia. Power landscape in Mississippi, farmers doing better than ever, feudalistic society. History and cause of job displacement, reduced interest in physical well-being of black sharecroppers. Campbell College, role of church in re-gaining control, remaining construction needs. Jack [Geiger] in Washington D.C., working with Shriver to work out space issues. Staff recruitment, anticipated challenges of bringing northern health professionals to Mississippi. Challenges of recruiting black health professionals to the Delta. Debate with interviewer about the relative expertise academics with backgrounds in rural sociology and anthropology bring to the project. Difference between one PhD doing research independently and practitioners working together as a team, with community.
Digital Folder DF-05699/18	"Unknown speaker," 12 January 1967 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-08 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Post-Open House meeting with anger, little resolution. Dr. Gibson openly attacked. Residents feel things are happening behind their back. Geiger thought it was an awful meeting. Staff dominance. Hiring issues.
Digital Folder DF-05699/19	"Unknown speaker," 12 January 1967 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-09 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Staff presence at Columbia Point Health Association meetings. Questions and misunderstandings about relationship of Board of Directors to health center staff. Health Association; is unclear relationship with Health Center executive leadership, Tufts, etc. Questions about Health Association's membership composition. Sub-committee open house. The concept of working with someone from the community to design an invitation was something "entirely inconceivable." Geiger rewrites invitation insert. Questions about usage of terms like "partnership." Welcome input to identify terms that could "backfire." Made corrections. After invitations sent in November, questions arise about the Open House program. Health Association's unclear relationship with Health Center executive leadership, Tufts, etc. Ad hoc committee feels distant from Tufts, Geiger/Gibson, etc. Importance of the insert. "In a sense this is how they were trying to clarify themselves what the health center was." Origins of tensions between Health Association and Health Center. Inevitability of tension. Residents hesitant to be assertive about how they feel, agree in meetings "because they had no other choice." Open House: residents feel excluded. They lacked influence in forming guest list. Separate rooms for dignitaries and residents, etc.
Digital Folder DF-05699/20	"Columbia Point Open House Ribbon Cutting Speeches," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-10 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Deputy Mayor Henry Scagnolli. Robert Quinn, Massachusetts Attorney General. Jacob Brier, Chairman of Boston Housing Authority. Chairman of Ad Hoc Committee. Jack Geiger. OEO person Dr. Julius Richmond. Robert Miserve, Chairman of Tufts Board of Trustees.
Digital Folder DF-05699/21	"Columbia Point Open House Ribbon Cutting Speeches," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-11. Duplicate of DF-05699/20. (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)
Digital Folder DF-05699/22	"Columbia Point Staff Meeting," 13 December 1965 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-12 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Joanna Ross (Columbia Point resident): Discusses power dynamics and relationships between professional and resident at Columbia Point. Social workers see Columbia Point as "hardcore," but Columbia Point sees social workers as "hardcore." Dealing with 2 problems: lack of funds, and failure (to provide for family, "hang onto a man," etc.). How residents perceive and relate to welfare workers. Residents' attempts to "beat the system." Viewing problems as community issue, rather than an individual issue. Need to recognize strengths and assets in Columbia Point in order to be effective. Ambiguous, misleading language like "poverty" and "cultural deprivation." Geiger question: how do we deal with the fact that the health center may also be seen as another system to beat? Responds to Gibson's concerns that the health center is not fully ready to open. Responds to Gibson's questioning the appropriateness and efficacy of providing care for free, relevance of residents; financial contribution. Geiger offers perspectives on need to work out different scaled payment arrangements. Who should determine what patients know; extent to which individual context, communal help, and confidentiality matter. Discussion following Gibson's suggestion of fixing a date when payment system is setup and services are no longer free.
Digital Folder DF-05699/23	"Columbia Point Staff Meeting," 10 January 1966 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-13 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Dr. Gibson: Need OEO approval, funding for more equipment, consumable supplies, health and administrative personnel. Physician recruitment updates. Interest in combining maternal (OB/GYN) and child (pediatric) health departments. Relationships with and patient admissions at Boston-area hospitals. Transferring records between health center and local hospitals. Updates of Health Association elections, winners, and voting turnout. Columbia Point Community Development Council recruiting many of the candidates who lost. Importance of introducing pre-payment as a priority issue at first meetings of the Health Council. Gibson and Geiger to attend Washington, D.C., meeting to learn about developments at other recently funded health centers. Initial plans for comprehensive dental study and facility.
Digital Folder DF-05699/24	"Organization of Columbia Point Discussion," 1966 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-14 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Elaine Patrikas, 21 March 1966: Discusses role as medical record librarian and office administrator at Columbia Point Health Center. Unknown Speaker, 9 December 1966: Recalls conversation with Gibson about origins of Columbia Point project. Describes first staff hired, beginning in June 1965. Architectural problems when architects used Dr. Herr's suggested layout, but failed to fix the mistakes in his design. Dr. Goldodetz and Rose Goodman, 13 December 1966: Columbia Point staff recruitment. Dr. Herr's criticism of Gibson's sexism. Connie's anger at Jack for his lack of commitment to Columbia Point, focus only on Mississippi. Gibson's unwillingness to fight the Tufts administration. Tufts is courageous to take on projects how quickly can one expect a University to adapt and change. Department of Preventative Medicine too small to adequately run the practice. Need people like Geiger, but felt out of touch with him and his grandiose ideas. Many debates and disagreements with Geiger. General "mistakes" at Columbia Point: lack of on-site general director, inadequate staffing and resources, lack of supervision for residents.
Digital Folder DF-05699/25	"Planning Committee Meeting," 9 and 10 May" 1967 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-15 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Begins with discussion of personnel issues at Mound Bayou and Columbia Point. Building construction, land lease. Sarah Brown and Taborian merge into new not-for-profit community hospital. Hatch updates on town structure, tax base. Danger of developmental planning is to make sure it doesn't merely go through existing channels, local elites.
Digital Folder DF-05699/26	"Program Committee Meeting," November 1966 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-16 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Plans for December 11th Columbia Point anniversary celebration, Senator Ted Kennedy as keynote. Discussion about the complexity of working with community, developing mutual understanding, dealing with community resistance. Gibson's concern that there is an "unstable terminology" around health care innovation. Confusion over meaning of "Community Health Action." Definition of jobs and roles such as home health aide, homemaker, etc.
Digital Folder DF-5966/27	"Columbia Point Health Care," 18 October 1966 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-17 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Discussion around relocating Columbia Point health offices to different buildings. Frequent employee complaints about not having a place to eat lunch. Budget issues, Kennedy's $50 million health center legislation passed. Welfare and Medicaid billing issues; question about whether to combine eligibility reviews for welfare and housing. Discussion about the extent to which the health center wants to associate with welfare services. Current state and reputation of welfare services. Discussion about efficacy of regular Family Health Care Group meetings to review medical, social, environmental needs of patients; case examples, success stories, frustrations with limited time for FHCG meetings. Numbers of Columbia Point residents using non-health center physicians, seeking care at Mass General. Patients' negative experiences and perceptions of social workers. Some Columbia Point doctors are hesitant to examine patients who smell badly. Geiger's feeling this is just "part of the job." Doctors unsure how to deal with patients "unpleasant" political views. Larger question: why are doctors practicing here? Disenchantment with extent of problems, difficulty resolving problems.
Digital Folder DF-05699/11	"American Association for the Advancement of Science addresses, Margaret Mead [and] L.C. Dorsey," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-01 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Mead wins AAAS prize, donates cash prize to North Bolivar County Food Cooperative. L.C. Dorsey accepts award and gives inspiring speech about co-op; interrupted frequently by applause. Skillfully responds to comment shouted by audience member "What about the panthers? They're a beginning." Talks about co-op helping people develop awareness of own dignity.
Digital Folder DF-05699/28	"Co-op and Health Center Development," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-18 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Matthew Walker writes grant for two comprehensive health centers. Claims that Tufts is trying to "rip off" what Meharry had quietly struggled for twenty years to do. Geiger recalls previous struggles with hospital bail outs, Meharry grant issues. Issues with Earl, Walter, who see hospital grant as funding them. Middle class confusion, sense of threat. Skepticism. "People nod, but don't know what you're talking about." Danny and Kathy Mitchell, relationship with Earl Lucas. Perceptions of Mitchell, who mixed with the poor, knew everyone. Mitchell met with friendly response, hospitality emerging against Geiger and Hatch; ideological and strategic differences in leadership. Danny's resignation blamed on L.C. Dorsey and John W. Hatch being "restrictive." Danny organizes resistance within the staff. Co-op attracts most "able" employees, co-op vs. health center development. Geiger's view that health center not "real" until later, unlike co-op. Project charged with dividing black community by offering leadership opportunities to the poor rather than existing middle-class leadership. Dorsey and Hatch disagree about power disparities between health council and co-op boards. Mound Bayou Development Corporation announces "we've decided that we should be the board." Hatch responds to question about whether Lucas et al would have tried to gain control of health center if it had been located elsewhere in Bolivar County. Lucas et al never complained about quality of or need for services; always about money and politics.
Digital Folder DF-05699/29	"John Hatch, L.C. Dorsey, and Jack Geiger," 1974 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-19 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Reflecting on the Delta Project, eight years later, Geiger wonders whether the TDHC would have had fewer struggles had it just taken over the failing hospitals and reorganized the town government. Dorsey responds that the poor "might not have bought it." There's a difference between bringing something new and sharing it vs. settling somewhere and then taking over. Geiger imagines whether things would have been smoother and more successful if they'd rescued the hospitals and insisted that the board membership be entirely comprised of the poor. Political conservatism of African Americans is a desire for a bigger piece of the pie, not a systemic revolution. Compare to revolution in China, concept of collective ownership. Can you make a revolution? Discussion on "What eight years later, would we do differently?" Hatch: "Poor people's capitalism"--find some way to buy into the system on its terms, like buying a textile mill. Discussion about whether the project would have been different if located outside of Mound Bayou. Belief that TDHC project had discretion and freedom from OEO, white power structure. Takeover wasn't the black elites alone, but Leon Cooper and changes at OEO along with the elites. Alternative ideas (Hatch): establish regional resource pool, be accessible to community to help them with term-contained projects they want to develop. Compare efficacy of education/training programs to those of MLK Health Center in the Bronx. Obvious disadvantages to rural, isolated location. Despite Hatch's hopes for Ted to bring "synthesis," major problems and tensions with Ted's authoritarian leadership. Earl Lucas's motives and tactics; Danny Mitchell and Owen Brooks's conflict-oriented behavior as a consequence of their own frustration, impact on health care delivery. Fighting for moral rightness is easier than making a project work. Prothro's problematic vision and leadership. Roots of tension with Matthew Walker. Discussion about the ways in which institutions with a black component (e.g.., VA hospital and Tuskegee) survive more easily than black institutions in isolation. Geiger explains what he would do differently, why he wouldn't go back to a place like Mound Bayou. Hatch explains why he would break the project down into several health centers. L.C. Dorsey wonders if problems would have been avoided had the project stuck to medical services only, had new/poor leadership not been pitted against existing leadership. Discussion: could Lucas et al have been "bought"?
Digital Folder DF-05699/30	"Columbia Point," 1966-1967 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-20 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)
Digital Folder DF-05699/31	"Meetings," 1968 Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-21 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)
Digital Folder DF-05699/32	"Unknown speaker," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-23 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Unknown speaker lecturing about medical research, ethical problems, challenges of applying findings to real world problems.
Audiocassette C-05699/8	Group of employees and L.C. Dorsey, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Group tape with young Black employees and verbal report from L.C. Dorsey." Employees introduce themselves and their first impressions of the Health Center project. Empowerment, economic and social uplift for blacks. Comparison to the church. Response to criticism of environmental services. Economic impact of TDHC. Need for national health insurance to ensure prevention and equity. Home remedies. Dying babies, infant mortality rate not something that people worried about. "You don't cry about the babies, you cry about the old folks." Impact of Stanton election. Opinions and analysis of Mayor Earl Lucas. Opinions and analysis of governor's veto. Impact if Health Center is forced to close. Opinions about current administration of Health Center. Is community control possible? Who are the leaders in the Health Center's survival? Dorsey offers thoughtful reflection on the conversation with black employees. Extent to which community is aware of problems, sees this as a crisis.
Audiocassette C-05699/9	Hunger, Food and Malnutrition, December 1969 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "L.C. Dorsey/Margaret Mead, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Hunger, Food and Malnutrition Conference." Tape is identical to Tape #17. Mead wins AAAS "Proctor Prize," donates cash prize to North Bolivar County Food Co-op. L.C. gives inspiring speech about co-op; interrupted frequently by applause.
Audiocassette C-05699/10	Rashi Fein, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Rashi Fein, health economist at Harvard." 1st lecture on health insurance by R. Fein.
Audiocassette C-05699/11	Rashi Fein, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Rashi Fein, health economist at Harvard." 2nd lecture on health insurance by R. Fein.
Audiocassette C-05699/16	Lincoln Pediatric Collective, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Discussion with members of the Lincoln Pediatric Collective." Introductions. Presentation about what Lincoln Hospital is, formation of Pediatric Collective. Purpose of Pediatric Collective, community mental health program struggle. Facing opposition from physicians, establishing community control. Founding principles (e.g., challenge hierarchies). Conflicts within Collective and among house staff. Coming in with romantic notions. Problems with medical education. Confrontation with Lincoln leadership. Inadequate abortion program. Antagonism from Hospital's Community Advisory Board unrepresentative of community, elite. Fighting for a drug program. Seven demands. Political and special interests of health care system. Necessity of day care at hospital.
Audiocassette C-05699/17	Hunger, Food and Malnutrition, December 1969 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "L.C. Dorsey/Margaret Mead, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Hunger, Food and Malnutrition Conference." Tape is identical to Tape #9. Mead wins AAAS "Proctor Prize," donates cash prize to North Bolivar County Food Co-op. L.C. gives inspiring speech about co-op; interrupted frequently by applause. Skillfully responds to comment shouted by audience member "What about the panthers? They're a beginning."
Audiocassette C-05699/22	Staff meeting, 13 February 1969 Audiocassette Poor sound quality.
Audiocassette C-05699/42	John W. Hatch, 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. John Hatch, AHC Lecture Series." Domination and subordination and impact on health. Work of John Cassel on social stress and social buffers. Wealth and health, identity and survival. Health and economic disparities burdening blacks.

Environmental Health, 1969-1971 and undated.

Material is chiefly correspondence pertaining to environmental health services and Andrew James the director of those services at the Health Center. Also included is an audio recording with James. Topics addressed include training for sanitarians and nurse midwives, municipal sewage and water services, drinking water crisis and public health emergency in Mound Bayou, Miss., the public health dangers of pests such as rats and mosquitoes, housing and living conditions, and the tactic of identifying problems and solutions as public health issues rather than civil rights concerns when communicating with white plantation owners.

Folder 23	Sanitarian Intern Program, 1969 Proposal written by Andrew James.
Folder 24	"Water Crisis," 1969 In a 11 July 1969 letter to Mayor Earl Lucas, Jack Geiger writes of the "public health emergency" in Mound Bayou, Miss. "At these levels, proper chlorination of the water is not possible; yet without such treatment, we know from direct past experience there will be serious contamination as measured by the growth of E. Coli and other organisms."
Folder 25	Andrew James, Director of Environmental Health, 1969-1970 Includes correspondence, James's curriculum vitae, and an offprint of an article by James, "Tufts-Delta Administers Environmental Treatment."
Folder 26	Andrew James, Director of Environmental Health, 1969-1971 Chiefly correspondence pertaining to James's position as director of Environmental Health at the Tufts-Delta Health Center. Topics addressed in the letters include the Rosedale Hospital in Rosedale, Miss., training programs for sanitation officers and nurse midwives, hurricane relief efforts on Mississippi's Gulf coast, inspection of a public swimming pool, a definition of "decent conditions" requested by the Boston Legal Assistance Project in Boston, Mass., a municipal health department in Mound Bayou, Miss., low income housing in Clarksdale, Miss., and the Beaufort-Jasper Comprehensive Health Center in Beaufort, S.C.
Folder 27	Andrew James, Director of Environmental Health, 1969-1971
Folder 28	"Sewage Lagoon," 1970 Chiefly correspondence pertaining to the proposed location of a sewage lagoon near the Tufts-Delta Health Center.
Digital Folder DF-05699/5	"Andy James," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-05 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Environmental health needs and interventions. "No matter how poor you are, you must have water." Dealing with water shortage, contaminated water sources, shallow wells. Developing manual tools for digging wells at safe depth. Philosophy of environmental health includes addressing underlying problems, interrupting cycle of illness and disease, working in collaboration with curative/clinical medicine. Detailed description of key problems and interventions: 1) water 2) sewage disposal 3) housing itself. TDHC physicians very receptive to multifaceted approach. Compromising, finding common ground with community's priorities: "They may see the rat as a problem, because the rat may bite the children; I see the open garbage dumps [where rats live and feed]" Using community's own priorities (e.g., rats, mosquitoes) as a route of entry into broader health center priorities. Much easier to achieve changes (with white plantation owners) by framing things in terms of public health, rather than civil rights. Environmental health practitioners trained to talk sensitively with low educated people, black and white. Training local people as first black sanitarians in Mississippi. Town of Mound Bayou hiring entire staff for $1 a year to serve as environmental health services division with James as director. Why James came to Mississippi. Go where need is, "pay some dues" to those who have struggled on behalf of blacks elsewhere.

North Bolivar Farm Cooperative, 1966-1972 and undated.

Materials are correspondence, brochures, notes, and parts of grant applications pertaining to the Health Center's supplemental food program and the Farm Cooperative. Topics addressed include, funding for the cooperative and food programs, malnutrition and malnourishment, food insecurity, food stamps, nutritional programs, impact on community of the black-run cooperative, a persistent sharecropping mentality, job opportunities, prospects for a cannery, and home remedies.

Folder 29

North Bolivar Farm Cooperative, 1968-1971

Chiefly correspondence. Topics of letters include funding for the co-op, food stamps, and hopes of food processing plants moving into the Mississippi Delta.

Folder 30-35

Folder 30

Folder 31

Folder 32

Folder 33

Folder 34

Folder 35

Supplemental Food Program for Bolivar County, 1969-1971

"Almost half of the working people in the entire county make, on the average, less than $500.00 a year. The overwhelming majority of these people come from the Black Community...facts and figures indicate persons in Bolivar County are suffering as the results of malnutrition and hunger. For these reasons, OEO emergency food and medical services is asked for a grant to carry on a food distribution and nutrition program in Bolivar County."

Folder 36

"Farm Co-op," 1972

Portions of a 1972 grant application, "North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative Self-help Nutritional Program," to fund the farm cooperative.

Folder 37

"Co-op Notes," undated

Typescript notes about the North Bolivar Farm Cooperative and L.C. Dorsey.

Folder 38

North Bolivar Farm Co-op,

Informational brochure. "In North Bolivar County black people have many problems. Many of us don't have jobs, because machines have taken our places on the plantation. Without a decent job, we have little money to provide for our families. The houses we live in are falling apart. Many of us don't have water or indoor plumbing. The plantation system has kept us poor and powerless. This is why we decided to organize a co-op. The Co-op would give us a chance to break the hold that the plantation has had over us."

In a 10 April 1969 letter to Selma Wolff and Harold A. Wolff of New York, Jack Geiger writes, "if you want to do something about health in an area like this you have to do every piece of it at once so we are becoming a well-digging, privy-building, house-rehabilitating, rural housing developing, water-system constructing, public transport-developing, farm co-op organizing, community center-building, job-training health center."

Folder 39

"Measure for Measure," undated

A description of a non-profit, civil rights organization based in Wisconsin and a newspaper clipping about the organization's contributions to the North Bolivar Farm Cooperative, including canning supplies.

Digital Folder DF-05699/1

"L.C. Dorsey," undated

Audio recording.

Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-01 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)

Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description):

Co-op's purpose, history, and development.
Community members' interest and involvement in co-op.
Malnourishment and food insecurity.
Difficult transition from food commodities to food stamps.
Use and types of "home remedies."
Relevance of home remedies in context of Blacks' fear of exploitation by white physicians.
Indigenous "herb doctors."
Use of amulets and potions to prevent voodoo, hexes, bad luck.
Size (members, beneficiaries, land area).
Psychological/spiritual impact of "all black, for black, and black run."
Availability of new job opportunities.
Growing awareness of "blackness," but concerns about hierarchies and mentalities of sharecropping carrying over to co-op.
Individual stories of co-op's impact on employees.
Criticism of health center's bureaucracy and rigidity.
Hopes for the future of the co-op and cannery.

Reports, Papers, and Congressional Testimony 1963-2009 and undated.

Topics addressed include infant care, elder care, hunger, food insecurity, and supplemental food programs, the use of home remedies, mental health particularly as it relates to external social factors and racism, environmental conditions and sanitation, economic conditions, and housing.

Folder 40

Medical Care and the Mississippi Negro, 1963

Report made to the United States Public Health Service. Includes data on medical services and the population broken down by race.

Folder 41

Infant Feeding in Rural Mississippi, 1968

"A questionnaire was devised with which we sought to determine the feeding patterns in this community. In addition, we sought information about demographic, social economic and educational characteristics of this community,"

Folder 42

It Can Be Done: The Tufts-Delta Health Center After One Year, 1968

Report includes census and survey data and addresses medical care, social service, community action, farm cooperative, nutrition, sanitation, housing, and family planning. "The evidence is strong the poor get sicker, and the sick get poorer."

Folder 43

Tufts-Delta Health Center: Meeting the Challenge of Community Health, 1969

Report by David E. Weeks. "Our education goals are to provide training and education opportunities to our staff and others from the target area, and thus provide a source of manpower for the health center and provide upward mobility for persons within the community."

Folder 44

Community Medicine Seminar, 1969

"Whatever the decisions, when a community determines a course of action, we are committed to give them what they want. The problem that health professionals face is to educate the people to what they should need so they can need what they want."

Folder 45

The Community Part in Health Center Program, 1969

By Mrs. Pearlia B. Robinson, Community Development Worker, Tufts-Delta Health Center. "Many people were seeing the doctor when they needed to. This was the first time poor black people had ever had this right. Until a few years ago most of us lived on the plantation as tenants or sharecroppers. When the bossman needed us, he would stand for the doctor's bill, but it was always necessary to go to the big house to get a note from the boss or his agent. If they didn't think you were sick you couldn't see the doctor."

Folder 46

A Psychologist's Function in a Medical Program in Rural Mississippi, 1969

Report by Florence Halpern. "As the psychologist becomes cognizant of the black man's problems it is apparent that these 'problems' are not those of the patient who comes for personal help because of inner conflicts. Rather his problems arise largely as a result of external conditions, and his needs are caused by an environment that others have structured for him."

Folder 47

Social Problems of the Aging Population in Northern Bolivar County, circa 1969

Report by John W. Hatch. Problems elderly African Americans experienced included difficulty in shopping, difficulty in home maintenance, absence of a water supply, inadequate toilets, nutritional problems, difficulty preparing meals, and loneliness.

Folder 48

The Impact of Environmental Health at Delta Health Center, 1970

Report by Andrew James. "Many of the health problems in the community are related to the water supply, sewage system, and waste disposal."

Folder 49

Report of the Hot Lunch Program, 1970

"This program is very much needed in these communities because there are so many aged people living alone, no one to talk to, no one to prepare them a decent meal. They feel neglected and they are. "

Folder 50

T.D.H.C. Annual Report to OEO, 1970

Folder 51

Community Development in a Rural Comprehensive Community Health Program, 1970

By John W. Hatch. "We soon found out that the number one priority was not health as traditionally viewed. Food, that is the lack of it, was the most pressing problem in the fall and winter of 1967."

Folder 52

Testimony of Rogers B. Morris, 1970

For presentation at the hearings of the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate. "In many homes, it rains, sleets or snows into that bedroom …In some instances, we have found families forced to cannibalize their own homes, tearing boards from the walls to burn in a old stove for heat to get through the worst of the winter months."

Folder 53

Statement of Aaron Henry, President, Mississippi NAACP, 1970

For presentation at the hearings of the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, United States Senate, 5 October 1970. "This Committee heard a few weeks ago about the housing conditions in North Bolivar County, Mississippi, where less than one house in three has piped water and the rest have outhouses or nothing at all. The people in those houses have lived their [sic] all their lives and in most cases, their parents lived that way before them. That's not a crisis, that's a scandal."

Folder 54

Final report of the project director H. Jack Geiger, 1971

"To the Board of Director, North Bolivar County Health and Civic Improvement Council on the Present Status and Future Prospects of the Delta Health Center."

"There will be a continuing need for recruitment of professionals (particularly doctors) from outside; also social workers, accountants, nurses, pharmacists, etc. This will take continuing, unceasing effort , with close coordination between the Delta, the program component, other universities both Black and white, the new Domestic Health Corps, etc."

Folder 55-56

Folder 55

Folder 56

A Health Center for Social Change: People and Poverty in Rural Mississippi, circa 1971

Lightly annotated copies of the report by Jack Geiger. "There was no recent American history of attempts, either conceptually or in practice, to see and use community health services for the poor not merely as an assault on the specific health problems and health care needs of the poverty population, but also as a basis for community organization and development, and through community organization for the implementation of social change in all of the related areas that overwhelmingly determine the ill health and the damaged quality of life in poverty: food, housing, clothing, water and sanitation, jobs and economic opportunity, mobility and transportation services, isolation from the sources of technical assistance, the early and overwhelming deprivation of children and individual, family and community fragmentation."

Folder 57

A Report on Health Maintenance, 1971

By Cynthia Amis, James Adams, and Leonard Inge.

Folder 58

Community or Consumer Health Action, An Integral Part of the Comprehensive Health Center, 1971

Report by Theodore Parrish.

Folder 59

American Public Health Association Report, 1973

Lightly annotated copy of a document held at Mississippi State University. "A starved local economy, infused with new funds, becomes destructively competitive for new advantage and new jobs, and local public agencies, with long traditions of dereliction in providing essential services, become hostile as they are by-passed by ad hoc mechanisms that accentuate the inequities of tradition."

Folder 60

Dirt Dauber Nests, Socks Nailed Over Doorways, Salts, Prayer and OTCs: Space Age Medicine in the Poor Community, circa 1990

Paper by L.C. Dorsey. "The use of home remedies is still part of the health care practices of many families in the entire state; often to compensate for the lack of money or insurance for health care by doctors and other health care professionals."

Folder 61

Reports, 1992

Includes "In-House Statement on the Seminar on Health and Development" and reports from Dental Services, Community Home Health Agency, the clinical director, administrative services director, and executive director.

Folder 62

Delta Health Center newsletter, August 1992

Folder 63

Clinical Services Division Board Report, 2009

Folder 64

An Educational Approach to Housing, undated

Report by Andrew James. "We must see the need for environmental sociologists and clinical psychologists, and physicians are beginning to attribute some worth to our profession, exclusive of rat investigator and john inspectors. We must have a hand in planning in order to build out future ghettos and deny existence to social and economic structures that allow them to evolve."

Court Papers, 1990-1994 and undated.

Materials pertain to two court cases in which the Delta Health Center was a litigant in the 1990s.

Folder 65-66

Court documents, 1990-1994

Delta Health Center, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board. Also includes correspondene and a "Notice to Employees posted pursuant to an order of the United States Court of Appeals holding the undersigned in contempt."

Folder 67

"Delta Fight," 1992

Court documents including a successful motion for dismissal of Ivey Odom, et al. v. Delta Health Center, Inc. et al.

Personnel, 1966-1994 and undated.

Materials are job descriptions and applications, correspondence with job applicants, newspaper clippings, notes, budget and staffing justifications, and files on a labor dispute. In addition to specific jobs and applicants, topics addressed include recruitment and retention particularly of physicians, staff housing, and the living conditions of staff and their families most of whom had moved to Mississippi to work at the Health Center.

Folder 68

Personnel, 1966

Chiefly letters to job applicants.

Folder 69

Personnel, 1967

Contains letters, resumes, curriculum vitae, and applications.

Folder 70

Personnel, 1968

Contains letters, resumes, curriculum vitae, and applications.

Folder 71

Personnel, 1968

Chiefly letters to job applicants. Includes a document from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare with "Suggestions for Recruiting Military Medical Personnel for Civilian Health Occupations."

Folder 72

Personnel, 1969

Chiefly letters to job applicants. Includes a 27 January 1969 letter to Count D. Gibson, Jr., from Jack Geiger discussing living conditions for Tufts-Delta Health Center staff. He writes, "We live in trailers or small dilapidated local houses, often with wives and two or three children in less than 700 square feet of space. We drink contaminated water....For complex reasons, we live in social isolation from most of the black and white communities."

Folder 73

Personnel, 1969

Chiefly letters to job applicants.

Folder 74

Personnel, 1970

Chiefly letters to job applicants.

Folder 75

Personnel, 1971-1972

Includes letters pertaining to recruitment and the merger of Tufts-Delta Health Center with Mound Bayou Community Hospital.

Folder 76

Personnel, undated

Contains job descriptions for a field technician and pharmacy secretary and a budget justification for temporary physicians.

Folder 77

Organization charts, circa 1968

"Steps toward the organization of a Health Council in Northern Bolivar County."

Folder 78

Housing, 1969-1970

Correspondence pertaining to housing for the Tufts-Delta Health Center's faculty and staff.

Folder 79

Tufts-Delta Health Center staff directory, circa 1970

Includes staff members' schools, entry dates, and departments.

Folder 80

Aaron Gerber, 1970

Recommendation and other materials assembled for Gerber's promotion.

Folder 81

Salaries, 1970

Includes salary justifications for individuals and positions.

Folder 82

Physician recruitment, 1972-1993

Includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, and notes by Jack Geiger. In a 28 November 1988 letter to L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger writes, "The problems faced by physicians in rural areas and in practice like the Delta Health Center include: social and intellectual isolation, professional isolation and limitation (inability to conduct hospital practice, limited number of colleagues and consultants); housing; money (low health center salaries vs. other opportunities); amenities; educational facilities for children; job opportunities for spouses."

Folder 83

Staff alumni, 1991-1992

Directory information about alumni and a letter from a former Tufts-Delta Health Center staff member.

Folder 84-85

Folder 84

Folder 85

Labor dispute, 1994

National Labor Relations Board v. Delta Health Center, Inc.

Folder 86

Obituaries of former staff, undated

Copies of obituaries for Count Dillon Gibson, Jr., Sister Mary Stella Simpson, and Christian M. Hansen, Jr.

Expand/collapse Series 2. Mound Bayou, Miss., Hospitals and Healthcare, 1966-1993.

Approximately 750 items.

Correspondence, memoranda, contracts and agreements, newspaper clippings, meeting minutes, reports, and printed materials comprise the series. Materials pertain chiefly to the first decade of the Health Center including its founding and the complex and often difficult relationships and dealings it had with the Office of Economic Opportunity, the established local medical community, and the political, social, and racial hierarchies in the town and county.

Tufts-Delta Health Center, 1966-1993 and undated.

Memoranda, correspondence, legal documents, publicity materials, and newspaper clippings pertain to the founding of the Health Center, recruitment of staff, construction of the clinic, and municipal services from the Town of Mound Bayou.

Folder 87	Memorandum, 14 April 1966 "To: Sargent Shriver. Subject: Tufts Medical School Project, Bolivar County, Miss." The memo's author recommends that "Tufts should formally forswear any civil rights activities as part of the program."
Folder 88	Construction agreement, 1968 Agreement with contractor and the Tufts-Delta Health Center Trust to construct a community health center in Mound Bayou, Miss.
Folder 89	Tufts-Delta Health Center Trust, 1967-1970 Includes the 1967 declaration of trust.
Folder 90	Special Warranty Deed for Town of Mound Bayou, 1967-1969 "This conveyance is made for the purpose of enabling the Grantee to locate a water well on the parcel of land hereby conveyed, which well will supply water for the Town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, including the Tufts-Delta Health Center and its allied activities."
Folder 91	Tufts-Delta Health Center Publicity, 1969-1993 Includes correspondence, magazine clippings, and a booklet about Mound Bayou.
Folder 92	"Healthcare with Care," undated Document outlines the Delta Health Center's profile, philosophy and goals, the surrounding area, educational opportunities, and benefits for center staff. The likely intent of the document is recruitment of physicians and other medical personnel. "The staff of DHC, Inc. has a dual commitment of assisting people with the difficult task of living wisely and providing high quality health care services which are accessible, affordable and acceptable to the cultural and social mores of the community."

"Struggles," 1966-1969 and undated.

Correspondence, press releases, statements, meeting minutes, and other documents pertain to the difficulties faced by Jack Geiger and other Health Center leaders and proponents who started the Health Center. Geiger identified the "struggles" reflected in the documents and included some explanatory notes. They were with state and local governments, broader local and state power structures, the local medical community, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and Tufts University.

Folder 93	"Struggle with Mississippi," 1965-1966 Chiefly correspondence including a 9 March 1966 letter to Mississippi Governor Paul B. Johnson from the president of Tufts University about the plans to construct and operate the Tufts-Delta Health Center and Johnson's 24 March 1966 response stating his opposition. Of note is a 18 March 1966 letter to Jack Geiger from a local physician who opposed the Health Center. "I challenge you or anyone else to prove to me your right to come into an area such as ours and cause discord and havoc with your massive 'free medicine' program in spite of obvious resistance from all organized areas such as the State Medical Association, the local medical association, the local physicians and the people. We want you to know that we will resist your every move prior to your location in this area."
Folder 94	"Struggle with Mound Bayou Mafia," 1966 Documents include a list of attendees to a 1967 HEW conference, press release from OEO about the health centers in Boston, Mass., and Mississippi opening, minutes of 1967 executive meeting in Mound Bayou, and a copy of a statement from United States Senator Ted Kennedy. "I am particularly gratified by the success of the neighborhood health centers program, which is authorized by an amendment I introduced to the poverty program legislation."
Folder 95	"Struggle with OEO," 1967 Documents include a list of attendees to a 1967 HEW conference, press release from OEO about Boston and Mississippi health centers opening, minutes of 1967 executive meeting in Mound Bayou, and a copy of a statement from United States Senator Ted Kennedy. "I am particularly gratified by the success of the neighborhood health centers program, which is authorized by an amendment I introduced to the poverty program legislation."
Folder 96	"Struggle with Tufts," 1967-1969 Contains correspondence chiefly from 1966. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. Also included is a 1969 article "Health Care in the Mississippi Delta."

"Takeover Attempt," 1966-1970 and undated.

Correspondence, memoranda, contracts, meeting minutes, reports, explanatory notes and commentary written by Geiger, and other materials pertain to the complex relationships between the Health Center, Tufts University, the Taborian Hospital run by the African American fraternal order the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, the Mound Bayou Community Hospital, Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., and the Office of Economic Opportunity. Materials concerning the development of a community board reflect a sharp divide in the interests of the middle class and impoverished African American communities.

Folder 97

Taborian Hospital, 1966

Contracts between Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Miss., and Tufts University in Massachusetts.

Folder 98

Taborian Hospital, 1966

Chiefly correspondence about Taborian Hospital's financial crisis, including letters sent to President Lyndon Johnson. "A Negro fraternal order known as the Knights & Daughters of Tabor has maintained a hospital in the Town of Mound Bayou...This Order has done an excellent job of furnishing medical care to low-income groups through the years. However, at the present time the organization faces a severe crisis because of shortage of funds."

Also includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This material documents the desperate situation of the 2 hospitals on the brink of bankruptcy and having lost their accreditation for the first time...[and] the enormous effort Tufts went to, with OEO approval to funnel $25,000 in emergency funds to Taborian."

Folder 99

Taborian Hospital, 1966

Includes minutes of the hospital board's meetings.

Folder 100

Meharry Medical College and Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1966-1969

Chiefly correspondence. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger.

Folder 101

Community Board, 1966-1970

Contains a 15 December 1966 letter to John Frankel, director of the Office of Health Affairs in OEO's Community Action Program, from John W. Hatch discussing the development of a community board for Mound Bayou's healthcare facilities. Included are reports on community organizing written by Hatch. Also included are explanatory notes written by Geiger. "This is precisely what did NOT happen with the meetings to elect a community hospital board. Instead, there really were no representative public meetings and the board was dominated by representatives of the fraternal orders...saw the OEO bailout of hospitals simply as a means of preserving their for-profit hospital insurance business."

Folder 102

Meharry Medical College Quarterly Digest, April 1966

Folder 103

"Frankel to Walker," 1966

Contains a letter from John Frankel, director of the health division of the Community Action Program of OEO, to Matthew Walker, who was associated with Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "In this letter he recognizes the early attempt by Dr. Walker (and possibly others at Meharry who were chafing over the perceived Tufts invasion of their Turf) to turn the Bashville CHC grant (which I largely wrote for them) into being also a grant for a Second CHC in Mound Bayou."

Folder 104

"Forming a New Board," 1967

Contains correspondence, memoranda, and meeting minutes. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This material is all about the efforts by John Frankel an OEO to assure that the two fraternal order hospitals would truly be transformed into a community hospital, funded by OEO, with a board representing the target population of poor people, rather than the director of the fraternal orders."

Folder 105

"Forming a New Board," 1967

Contains correspondence and memoranda and a summary of action from John W. Hatch. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This material is all about the efforts by John Frankel and OEO to assure that the two fraternal order hospitals would truly be transformed into a community hospital, funded by OEO, with a board representing the target population of poor people, rather than the directors of the fraternal orders."

Folder 106

"Mauer Incident, Takeover Attempt," 1968

Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "It begins with a major attempt by the Mound Bayou Community Hospital Board, representing both the interests of the fraternal orders and of the town government of Mound Bayou to obtain total control of the Tufts Delta Health Center, its budget and operations."

Folder 107

"Mound Bayou Takeover," 1968

Chiefly copies of correspondence with OEO concerning Mound Bayou Community Hospital. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "What is striking in retrospect is the unwavering repetition of the attempt already rejected by John Frankel of OEO, earlier to define the MBCH as a comprehensive community health center, and to define the Mound Bayou elites as the real representatives of the poor."

Folder 108

"Pre-Mauer Takeover Attempt," 1968

Lightly annotated copies of a documents, chiefly correspondence and memoranda. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "There were 3 struggle 1) MS [Mississippi] white power structure + local med [medical] community 2) MB [Mound Bayou] elite 3) OEO problem w OEO: its insistence on instant community organizing + resistance (pressure on Hatch) to real comm-organizing."

Folder 109

"Mauer Takeover," 1968-1969

Contains correspondence, memoranda, and meeting minutes. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This packet covers the crucial events of August and September 1968. It begins with a major attempt by the Mound Bayou Community Hospital Board, representing both the interests of the fraternal orders and of the town government of Mound Bayou to obtain total control of the Tufts Delta Health Center, its budget and operations."

Folder 110

Meharry Medical College and Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1969

Chiefly correspondence. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger.

Folder 111

"Post-Mauer Takeover Attempt," 1969

Lightly annotated copies of a documents, chiefly correspondence with the Tufts-Delta Health Center, Mound Bayou Community Hospital, OEO, and Tufts University Medical School.

Folder 112-113

Folder 112

Folder 113

"The Letter," 1969-1970

Contains correspondence, memoranda, and meeting minutes. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This packet contains some of the fall-out from Dean Maloney's [Tufts University Medical School] letter to Tom Bryant at OEO on August 13th, demanding resolution of the quality problems at the hospital. That letter was written by the Dean at my urging, and quite possibly on the basis of draft by me."

Folder 114

Meharry Medical College and Mound Bayou Community Hospital, undated

Draft proposal: "It is suggested that Meharry Medical College and the Mound Bayou Community Hospital enter into an affiliation…for the purpose of improving quality of patient care."

"Forced Merger" and the Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1966-1984 and undated.

Correspondence, memoranda, contracts, meeting minutes, reports, explanatory notes and commentary written by Geiger, newspaper clippings, by-laws, and other materials pertain to the merger in 1971 of the Health Center and the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and the consequences of the merger. Also reflected in the materials is the quality of health care in Mound Bayou, Miss., before the merger, which was mandated by the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Folder 115

"Medical Care Operations," 1966-1971

Chiefly copies of letters written by Jack Geiger to the OEO, the U.S. Department of Health Education, United States Senator Edward Kennedy, and Mississippi's medical community. In a 21 May 1968 letter to Guy Campbell at the University of Mississippi Medical School in Jackson, Miss., Geiger describes the Tuft-Delta Health Center's operations and staff. "We are, in effect, a full-scale comprehensive health care facility attempting to serve all of the population below the poverty income level in a 500 square mile area....By mid-July we will have completed a very adequate and fully equipped health center facility, including laboratory, x-ray, pharmacy and other supporting services; we will have completed a full staff of internists, pediatricians, obstetricians-gynecologists, a surgeon, generalists...public health nurses, licensed practical nurses, nurse aides and family health workers. In addition, we have a significant staff in community organization and community health action (which includes health education, nurse-midwifery and prenatal care...a full time professional sanitarian and various assistants in environmental hygiene.)"

Folder 116-117

Folder 116

Folder 117

Merger, 1966-1973

Merger of the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and the Tufts-Delta Health Center.

Folder 118

Mound Bayou Community Hospital medical and dental staff, 1968

Folder 119

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1968

Transcription of a conversation between Jack Geiger and Dr. Brown about the quality of care provided at the Mound Bayou Community Hospital.

Folder 120

Mound Bayou Community Hospital "Quality Problems," 1968

Includes medical case information.

Folder 121

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1968

Contains correspondence with OEO about the quality of care provided at Mound Bayou Community Hospital and minutes of a physicians' meeting at Tufts-Delta Health Center. In a 27 July 1968 letter to Ann Haendel at OEO, Jack Geiger writes, "I know that there are staffing shortages and problems, and I know that some of these troubles have afflicted the hospital for a long time and the OEO grant was intended to help correct them. Yet more than a year after the initial grant the quality of care is such that it cannot be defended. I think OEO would be extremely vulnerable if a critic were to document the quality of care being provided to impoverished Delta Negroes under OEO auspices."

Folder 122

"Post Mauer Coordination and Cooperation," 1969

Includes correspondence, memos, and staff meeting minutes. Also included is a copy of an undated list of fifteen grievances and recommendations from "We the Black Students of TDHC." Among the grievances was the assertion that "Tufts has perpetuated racism by capitalizing on Mary Holmes students for cheap labor. Tufts should make an effort to at least pay tuition for these students and/or provide room and board for them."

Folder 123

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1969

Contains correspondence with OEO about the quality of care provided at Mound Bayou Community Hospital. Of interest is a confidential document titled "Observation on Mound Bayou Community Hospital," which offers numerous examples of inadequate facilities, incompetent staff, and poor care, particularly obstetric care, resulting in injury and death.

Folder 124

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1970

Chiefly correspondence between Tufts-Delta Health Center, OEO, and the Town of Mound Bayou. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger.

Folder 125

North Bolivar County Health Council, 1970-1972

Includes a letter from Andrew James, director of the Tufts-Delta Health Center and a newspaper clipping about the "clash" between the Center and Mound Bayou Community Hospital.

Folder 126

Merger, 1971

Merger of the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and the Tufts-Delta Health Center.

Folder 127-129

Folder 127

Folder 128

Folder 129

"Forced Merger," 1971-1972

Merger of the Mound Bayou Community Hospital and the Tufts-Delta Health Center.

Folder 130

Memorandum to SUNY Stonybrook on merger with Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1972

Lightly annotated copy of document in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 131

Memorandum to staff on merger with Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1972

Lightly annotated copy of document in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 132

Site visit report, 1972

Lightly annotated copy of document in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 133

Letter to Memphis Commercial Appeal, 31 July 1972

"From all the years since it first started, it was the health center that did all the pioneering and all the innovating and all the developing of health programs. Your report that it was just an 'outpatient facility primarily aimed at treating malnutrition' is just plain wrong, and the kind of junk that the Mound Bayou Hospital people always told you. It was the health center that gave full-scale medical care for everything. It was the health center that has the environmental health program and built privies and wells and rebuilt housing and started the farm cooperative...[signed] Sad Nurse."

Folder 134

Memorandum of agreement, circa 1972

"This memorandum summarizes the agreement reached at a conference of Mr. William Lafayette, Administrator, Mound Bayou Community Hospital, and Dr. H. Jack Geiger, Director, Tufts-Delta Health Center, on policies for referral of TDHC patients to MBCH."

Folder 135

Governor Waller's veto, 1972

Memoranda and newspaper clippings about Mississippi Governor William Waller's veto of the grant application to the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) by the Delta Community Hospital and Health Center. Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger.

Folder 136-137

Folder 136

Folder 137

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1972-1976

Lightly annotated copies of documents in the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 138

"The Gap," 1972-1984

Includes explanatory notes written by Jack Geiger. "This folder has minutes of the new board of the merged institutions, providing one window into what went on during the early years of the merger."

Folder 139

"Documents for your research and writing on the 1972-84 period," 1972-1984

Included is a 2006 letter from Jack Geiger to historian John Dittmer who received this group of documents. "Enclosed are very important documents for your research and writing on the 1972-84 period. While this is not the actual letter or document ending the Lucas/Mound Bayou Mafia's (my biased name) control of the health center...it does state the terms and identify the important names."

Folder 140

"New Hospital," 1972-1983

Lightly annotated copies of documents, chiefly correspondence, in the Delta Health Center Records at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Includes explanatory notes from Jack Geiger.

Folder 141

"New Hospital," 1973-1978

Folder 142

"New Hospital," 1975-1978

Folder 143

"Mound Bayou Community Hospital Fact Sheet," circa 1980

Includes demographic information about patients.

Folder 144

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1983

Fund-raising report and progress report for "new replacement facility."

Folder 145

Mound Bayou Community Hospital, 1983

Newspaper clippings.

Folder 146

"Mound Bayou Later Years," 1984-1992

Chiefly newspaper clippings and some correspondence with an explanatory note from Jack Geiger. "This all refers to the action by the HEW regional office in 1984 ordering that the old health center board and management be thrown out, or the Health Center will be closed."

Folder 147

"Washington Report," undated

Report on a meeting called by United Sates Senator Thad Cochran. Gordon Peters is quoted. "'The matter of this hospital's survival goes far beyond political, economic, or social issues…The issue of Mound Bayou Community Hospital's survival and improvement becomes a moral issue as well.'"

Folder 148

"Report of the Subcommittee on Merger," undated

Folder 149

Health Council Board of Directors, undated

"Summary of comments to the Health Council Board of Directors...At the present time many people believe that reorganization of health care is needed and that the 'systems' in broader use today are not capable of providing good care to 'all' people."

Folder 150

"New Hospital," undated

"Bylaws for the Regulation, Except as Otherwise Provided by Statute or its Articles of Incorporation, of Mississippi Delta Community Health Care Foundation."

Folder 151

Mississippi Delta Community Health Care Foundation, undated

"Conception & Purpose."

Expand/collapse Series 3. Towns and Counties in the Delta and the State of Mississippi, 1946-2005 and undated.

Approximately 150 items.

Newspaper clippings, scattered issues of the Mound Bayou newspaper, magazine articles, and other printed materials including brochures pertain to towns and counties in the Mississippi Delta. Other materials include correspondence, statistics on infant mortality in Bolivar County, Miss., a municipal project proposal, an economic development assessment, and a funding proposal to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Of interest is a 1970 set of demands from the African American community of Rosedale, Miss., that were submitted to the town's merchants.

Folder 152

East Bolivar County Hospital, 1962

Brochure.

Folder 153

Jewel of the Delta, 1962

Booklet celebrating the 75th anniversary of Mound Bayou, Miss.

Folder 154

Bolivar County, Miss., 1965-1966

Contains notes about Bolivar County's Community Action Program (CAP), a newspaper clipping about Head Start, and typescript sheets with demographic information compiled by SNCC.

Folder 155

"Mound Bayou," 1967-1970

Includes a document listing the major sources of employment in Mound Bayou, Miss., in 1969. The top employers were Head Start programs, Mound Bayou Community Hospital, Tufts-Delta Health Center, and the Mound Bayou Public School.

Folder 156

"Mississippi State," 1970

Contains correspondence with the Mississippi State Board of Health.

Folder 157

"Rosedale Black Community," 1970

"On the night of August 18 1970, the Black Community formulated the following demands to be presented by letter to you [Merchants of Rosedale, Miss.] and the mayor of the town. 1.An adequate municipal sewage system throughout the black community, 2. An ample supply of chlorinated water throughout the black community. ... 7. Recreational facilities that are adequate to the need of our young people. 8. Fair treatment of black people by the police force, and increase in the number of black policemen in proportion to the number of blacks in Rosedale's population."

Folder 158

"Rosedale, Miss.," 1980

Lightly annotated copies of documents, chiefly correspondence pertaining to Rosedale, Miss., and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, in the Delta Health Center Records at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 159

Town of Gunnison Administrative Assistance Proposal, 1981

Proposal made to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. "The main objective of this proposal is to secure finding for salaries that will accommodate a full-time mayor and a secretary/bookkeeper."

Folder 160

Rosalynn Carter and Betty Bumpers, "Every Child By Two-Mississippi Tour," 1992

Folder 161

United States Representative Mike Espy, 1992

Contains a letter and press release about the "House Bank."

Folder 162

Economic Development Assessment for the City of Mound Bayou, Miss., 1 June 1995

"Prepared for Mound Bayouians for Mound Bayou by Matthew Preston, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill."

Folder 163

Infant mortality statistics, circa 1995

Bolivar County, Miss.

Folder 164

Mound Bayou printed items, 2005 and undated

"The Mound Bayou Mississippi Story," and a memorial service program for Milburn J. "Sonny Boy" Crowe, "Mississippi's Treasure."

Folder 165

Truth Productions present Mound Bayou, a film by Brad Lichtenstein, undated

A lightly annotated description of the documentary film. Mound Bayou "is a documentary film about the survival of the community of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all black town founded during reconstruction by former slaves....The film features the people of Mound Bayou telling their story of survival, beginning with their roots on the plantations of Joseph and Jefferson Davis and tracing their history to the present."

Folder 166

Mound Bayou multi-purpose neighborhood center, undated

Document outlines a plan for a neighborhood center and the plan to apply for a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for its construction. The center plan contains descriptions of educational programming, including adult literacy and job training, and social service programs for mental health and welfare. The proposed center would include a library and an auditorium for cultural programs.

Folder 167

Delta Photo Road Show, undated

Booklet subtitled "Discovering the Unknown Photos of the Mississippi Delta."

Folder 168

He's Doing Something About the Race Problem, 1946

Article by Hodding Carter in the Saturday Evening Post.

Folder 169

A Stir of Hope in Mound Bayou, 1969

Article by Richard Hall in LIFE Magazine.

Folder 170-171

Folder 170

Folder 171

Newspaper clippings, 1960s

Folder 172-173

Folder 172

Folder 173

Newspaper clippings, 1970s

Folder 174

Newspaper clippings, 1980s-1990s

Folder 175

Down and Out in the Delta, 1990

Article by Clay Hathorn.

Folder 176

Newspaper clippings, undated

Oversize Paper OP-05699/1

The Mound Bayou Voice, 5 April 1968

Oversize Paper OP-05699/2

The Voice, Mound Bayou newspaper, 12-16 July 1970

Oversize Paper OP-05699/3

The Voice, Mound Bayou newspaper, 31 July-4 August 1970

Oversize Paper OP-05699/4

The Voice, Mound Bayou newspaper, 6-20 October 1970

Oversize Paper OP-05699/5

The Voice, Mound Bayou newspaper, 17-30 January 1971

Oversize Paper OP-05699/6

The Voice, Mound Bayou newspaper, 11 Febraury-1 March 1971

Expand/collapse Series 4. Research, Scholarship, and Writings, 1941-2014 and undated.

Approximately 200 items.

Notes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, chronologies and time lines of events, scholarly articles, and narratives comprise the series. Jack Geiger's correspondence is chiefly with historians John Dittmer and Thomas J. Ward and with former Health Center colleagues L.C. Dorsey, John W. Hatch, and Andrew James. During the early 2000s Geiger and Hatch worked with Dittmer and Ward to research and publish a history of the Health Center that included the perspectives of Dorsey, Geiger, and Hatch, all of whom wrote personal narratives for the book projects.

Book Projects, 1992-2014 and undated.

Grant criteria and proposal, budgets, notes, correspondence, newspaper clippings, a book activities report, chronologies and time lines of events, and book outlines pertain to projects pursued by Geiger with others to write the Health Center's history. Correspondence is chiefly with historians Thomas J. Ward, Jr., and John Dittmer and former Health Center colleagues L.C. Dorsey, John W. Hatch, and Andrew James.

Folder 177

National Institute of Health grant criteria, 1992

Health Services Research on Rural Health awards.

Folder 178

"History of healthcare," 1992-2007

Chiefly correspondence and clippings related to the "History of Healthcare in Mississippi" project.

Folder 179

Medical Committee for Human Rights, 2004 and undated

Draft of questions about MCHR and an obituary for Leslie A. Falk, M.D.

Folder 180

Book project, circa 2004

Includes notes, background information, and budgets for a book project on the Tufts-Delta Health Center.

Folder 181

Ford Foundation grant proposal, 2004

Folder 182

Correspondence, 2004-2005

Folder 183

Correspondence, 2004-2009

Letters received by Jack Geiger and sent to L.C. Dorsey and John W. Hatch about the book project.

Folder 184-185

Folder 184

Folder 185

Robert Wood Johnston Foundation grant criteria, 2005

Folder 186

"Book Activities Report," 2006

L.C. Dorsey writes, "I was in the clinic the first week they opened with my youngest children….I was unemployed, had six children and my husband made $36.00 per week."

Folder 187

Correspondence, 2006-2007

Folder 188

Correspondence, 2006-2009

Print outs of email messages exchanged between Jack Geiger and Andrew James who was the director of Environmental Health at Tufts-Delta Health Center.

Folder 189

Correspondence, 2011-2012

Letters to historian Thomas J. Ward, Jr., from Jack Geiger and historian John Dittmer.

Folder 190

Correspondence, 2013-2014

Folder 191

Notes from Jack Geiger, undated

In one note, Geiger alludes to "Sargent Shriver's spy, who was following me around Mississippi as I spoke to different Mississippi medical societies about our plans for the Delta Health Center and the need for it." N.B., The spy's report to which Geiger refers was not found in the collection.

Folder 192

"Delta Health Center Time line: Nov. 1965-May 1966," undated

Folder 193

"Chronology of Conflict in Mound Bayou," undated

Compiled by Jack Geiger.

Folder 194

"Tom Ward," undated

Notes for historian Thomas J. Ward, Jr., pertaining to the book project. Includes a list of "People Who Could Be Contacted."

Folder 195

"The New Book Outline," undated

"John [Hatch], Jack [Geiger], L.C. [Dorsey] Chapter 1 Who we are, what in our lives led us to Mound Bayou, 3 voices in one chapter."

Folder 196

"John Dittmer," undated

Chiefly clippings with a letter to historian John Dittmer from Jack Geiger. Included in the clippings is a 1948 Saturday Evening Post article titled "The Color Line in Medicine."

Folder 197

Tufts-Delta Health Center time lines, undated

Archival Research, circa 2005-2006 and undated.

Chiefly handwritten notes taken by Jack Geiger and John Dittmer while they were conducting archival research. Also included are annotated copies of finding aids and inventories for archival collections related to the Health Center, particularly the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Folder 198-204

Folder 198

Folder 199

Folder 200

Folder 201

Folder 202

Folder 203

Folder 204

Archives notes, circa 2005-2009 and undated

Chiefly notes taken by Jack Geiger and historian John Dittmer while researching the Tufts-Delta Health Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which holds the Delta Health Center Records.

Folder 205

"Out in the Rural," undated

Handwritten notes possibly made about the short film of that title produced and directed by Judy Schader Rogers in 1969.

Folder 206-208

Folder 206

Folder 207

Folder 208

Annotated finding aids, undated

Copies of finding aids and inventories of archival collections related to Tufts-Delta Health Center. Several lightly annotated copies of the finding aid for the Delta Health Center Records held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are included.

Folder 209-211

Folder 209

Folder 210

Folder 211

Inventories, undated

Inventories of documents and recordings Jack Geiger compiled for the book project.

Historical Scholarship, 1973-2011 and undated.

Materials are scholarly historical articles and essays about the Mississippi's plantation economy, race and class in the Mississippi Delta, civil rights, community health centers, and African American fraternal orders.

Folder 212	Leadership and Modernization: The Emerging Black Political Elite in the American South, 1973 Article by Lester M. Salamon.
Folder 213	Black Fraternal Hospitals in the Mississippi Delta, 1942-1967, 1999 Article by David T. Beito.
Folder 214	Our Temple of Health, 2000 Copy of a chapter in the book From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967 by David T. Beito.
Folder 215	A Safe Haven: Civil Rights Health Initiative in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 2002 Paper by Philip Lederer.
Folder 216	Participation, Power, and Place: Roots of the Community Health Center Movement, 2009 Honors thesis by Morissa G. Sobelson.
Folder 217	Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, 2009 Copies of selected pages from the book by David T. Beito and Lind Royster Beito.
Folder 218	Plantation Politics: The Tufts Delta Health Center and Intraracial Class Conflict in Mississippi, 1965-1972, 2011 Article by Greta de Jong.
Folder 219	T.R.M. Howard, undated Draft article without author attribution.

Public Health Scholarship, 1941-2014 and undated.

Scholarly public health articles, essays, and book excerpts pertain to community health centers, rural health, African American physicians, ethics and morality in healthcare, reform, human rights, and health services and medical care for poor African American communities.

Folder 220	Health on Wheels in Mississippi: The Mississippi Rural Health Project of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, 1941
Folder 221	The President of the N.M.A. and the Director of the FBI, 1956
Folder 222	Mississippi Medicine, 1968 Booklet by Carl M. Cobb with sections titled "Tufts Plan Negroes Only Ray of Hope," "New Hospital is By-Product of Tufts Project," "Sit and Die for Lack of $3," "Starvation Leading Medical Problem," "Teaching Self-Help in Bolivar County,"
Folder 223	Delivery of Pediatric Health Services in a Rural Health Center, 1969 Article by Roy E. Brown.
Folder 224	Community Shares in Policy Decisions for Rural Health Center, 1969 Article by John W. Hatch.
Folder 225	The Community Part in Health Center Program, 1969 "For presentation at the 97th annual meeting of the Public Health Association...by Mrs. Pearlia B. Robinson. Community Development Worker, Tufts Delta Health Center."
Folder 226	Moral Consciousness and Commitment in Mound Bayou, 1970 Article in the Meharry Medical College Quarterly Digest.
Folder 227	Hidden Professional Roles: The Physician as Reactionary Reformer, Revolutionary, 1971 Article by Jack Geiger.
Folder 228	The Pediatrician and Family Planning in a Very Poor Community: An Appraisal of Experiences in the Tufts Delta Health Center, Bolivar County, Mississippi, 1972 Article by Christian M. Hansen, Jr.
Folder 229	"New Federalism" and the Death of a Dream in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 1973 Article by Joseph Huttie, Jr.
Folder 230	Freedom Came to Mississippi, 1977 By L.C. Dorsey.
Folder 231	Sumter County Blues: The Ordeal of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, 1982 Report by Thomas N. Bethell.
Folder 232	Harder Times Than These, 1982 Article by L.C. Dorsey.
Folder 233	Reforming Medicine: Lessons of the Last Quarter Century, 1984
Folder 234	Community-Oriented Primary Care: The Health Center Experience, 1984 Booklet produced by the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc.
Folder 235	We Went to Mississippi, 1987 Article by M. Phyllis Cunningham, Helen Richardson Sanders, and Patricia Weatherly.
Folder 236	Community Health Centers: The Early Years of the Movement, 1990 Draft report by Larry T. Patton.
Folder 237	The Impact of Steuart's Philosophy on the Development of the Delta Health Center, 1991 Paper by John W. Hatch. "The most important formal organization was the church and its many auxiliaries that catered to special age, sex and status grouping in the community. It was through observation of this organization that I was best able to gain understanding of status and role positions within black rural and small town communities in Mississippi."
Folder 238	New Factory Workers in Old Farming Communities, 1992 A national conference sponsored by the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research, University of Kansas.
Folder 239	Rural and Small Town African-American Populations and Human Rights in Post Industrial Society, circa 1999 Article by John W. Hatch and Anita P. Holmes.
Folder 240	Community-Oriented Primary Care: A Path to Community Development, 2002 Article by Jack Geiger.
Folder 241	The Role of a Historically Black University and the Black Church in Community-Based Health Initiatives: The Project DIRECT Experience, 2003 Article by La Verne Reid, John W. Hatch, and Theodore Parrish.
Folder 242	Civil Rights, the War on Poverty, and Black-White Convergence in Infant Mortality in Mississippi, 2003 Report by Douglas V. Almond, Kenneth Y. Chay, and Michael Greenstone.
Folder 243	Up from Mississippi: How Tufts Made a Difference in the Deep South, 2003 Article by Bruce Morgan in magazine Tufts Medicine for the Medical Alumni Association at Tufts University.
Folder 244	Community Research: Partnership in Black Communities, circa 2005 Article by John W. Hatch, Nancy Moss, and Ama Saran.
Folder 245	The Health Center Story: Forty Years of Commitment, 2005 Article by Bonnie Lefkowitz.
Folder 246	The First Community Health Centers: A Model of Enduring Value, 2005 Article by Jack Geiger.
Folder 247	"Hold your head up and stick out your chin:" Community Health and Women's Health in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, 2005 Article by Jennifer Nelson.
Folder 248	Health Disparities: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know? What Should We Do?, 2006 Copy of a chapter by Jack Geiger in the book Gender, Race, Class & Health: Intersectional Approaches.
Folder 249	Mississippi: Where It All Began, 2007 Copy of a chapter in Bonnie Lefkowitz's book Community Health Centers: A Movement and the People Who Made It Happen.
Folder 250	Reap What You Sow: A Doctor, Mentor, and Activist Nurtures Young Minds Destined for Medicine, 2007 Article by Sharon Tregaskis in magazine Brown Medicine for the alumni and friends of the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University.
Folder 251	Right or Commodity? Health Care, Social Medicine & Cause Doctors of the 1960s and 1970s, 2008 Article by Abby Goldman. Also includes a book review by Goldman.
Folder 252	Health Care Reform and Primary Care: The Growing Importance of the Community Health Center, 2010 Article by Eli Y. Adashi, Jack Geiger, and Michael D. Fine.
Folder 253	The Obama Administration and Community Health Centers, circa 2012 Report pertaining to the Affordable Care Act and Recovery Act.
Folder 254	John Hatch on Community Organizing in the Mississippi Delta, 1965, 2014
Folder 255	Dollars for Reform: The OEO Neighborhood Health Centers, 10981 Copies of selected pages from the book by Isabel Marcus.
Folder 256	Community Participation and Control: Or Control of Community Participation, undated Article by John W. Hatch and Eugenia Eng.
Folder 257	A Health Center in Mississippi: A Case Study in Social Medicine, undated Article by Jack Geiger.
Folder 258	The Neighborhood Health Center: Background and Current Issues, undated Article by Lisbeth Bamberger Schorr.
Folder 259	Now is the Summer of Our Discontent, undated Article by Edward J. Sachar.

Narratives, 1996, 2006, and undated.

Chiefly typescript narratives written by L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger, and John W. Hatch for one or more of the book projects. The narratives provide personal context for their work with the Health Center and reflect their perspectives on race, class, and gender in the Mississippi Delta of the mid twentieth-century. The narratives also reveal their views on the community health movement and the social and environmental justice initiatives undertaken by the Health Center in Mound Bayou, Miss. Also included are two audio recordings from a meeting of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., with Jack Geiger and L.C. Dorsey discussing the history of the Health Center and Dorsey's personal story and background.

Folder 260

Freedom Came to Mississippi,

Copies of pages from the book by L.C. Dorsey.

Folder 261

L.C. Dorsey narrative, undated

"Everything was segregated and everyone knew his or her places. Whites did not visit the Black communities except to pick-up or bring home people who worked for them. "

Folder 262

L.C. Dorsey narratives, undated

Folder 263

L.C. Dorsey quotations, undated

Folder 264-265

Folder 264

Folder 265

"Road to Mound Bayou," 2006

Drafts of typescript narrative by Jack Geiger. "If the social and biological and physical and economic and political environments, not just medical care, were the real determinants of any populations' health, why couldn't that equation be run backwards?...Why couldn't medicine be an instrument of social change?"

Folder 266

Jack Geiger narrative, undated

In a lengthy typescript narrative with annotations, Geiger describes the development of health services in Bolivar County, Miss. Includes discussions of the county's white planters, political hurdles for the Health Center, and the medical establishment in Mississippi.

Folder 267

Jack Geiger narrative, undated

Typescript narrative. In one section, Geiger describes meeting with local physicians in the Mississippi Delta, including Robert Hollingsworth, who "told us about his real views about multi-racial societies which he felt he had to keep secret of course in Shelby and not be too open about it or else they'd run him out of town, very much on our side."

Folder 268

Jack Geiger narratives, undated

Typescript narrative. In one section, Geiger describes the American Medical Association in relation to race and discrimination in county and state medical societies. "This was more than a social slight, for one had to belong to the local medical society in order to obtain hospital privileges....The AMA claimed that while it opposed racial discrimination, it was powerless to compel the local medical societies to admit African-American physicians. MCHR picketed at AMA conventions from 1963-1968, when the organization finally reversed its policy."

Folder 269-270

Folder 269

Folder 270

"My Journey," undated

Annotated copies of typescript narrative written by John W. Hatch. "By the time I was four years old, I was aware of color identification. By 5, I had mastered the rudiments of survival in a color caste society."

Folder 271

John W. Hatch narrative, undated

On race and class structure in Mound Bayou, Miss., Hatch writes, "Like their white benefactors, not all gatekeeper blacks were viewed alike, some were master strategists who succeeded in gaining resources desperately needed by the black community without concern for personal gain."

Folder 272

"Community Organization," undated

A typescript narrative written by John W. Hatch. "While most had been poor all of their lives, they were now worse off because of the displacement of farm labor by weed control agents and cotton harvesting equipment. The economic well-being of plantation owners was no longer dependent on a mass black peasantry healthy enough to plant, cultivate and harvest the crop. Some producers cared about those displaced and allowed them to remain on the plantations and grow gardens. Others evicted former tenants and burned the tenant shacks to the ground. In many ways this period was reminiscent of stories my grandmother told about the life of her family in the years immediately following the Civil War."

Folder 273

"Community Organization," undated

A heavily annotated typescript narrative written by John W. Hatch.

Folder 274

"Prep Academy," undated

A typescript narrative possibly written by John W. Hatch about an educational program in Mound Bayou, Miss. "A significant part of my education had taken place in terribly inadequate conditions. Other African American staff with early roots in the rural south had similar experiences. Yet with remedial help and hard work, we had matriculated successfully in rigorous academic programs....We believed we could identify bright, motivated people in the Delta capable of similar achievement."

Folder 275

"Prep Academy," undated

An annotated typescript narrative possibly written by John W. Hatch.

Folder 276

"Down in the Mississippi Delta," undated

Lightly annotated copy of a book chapter.

Folder 277

Clay E. Simpson narrative and resume, 2006

"As a volunteer, I had already become involved in identifying programs and places where diamonds in the rough could gain a chance to further their education, especially in health and welfare fields. My initial task as Director of Education was to gather as much individual information as possible on educational levels of each nonprofessional staff member."

Audiocassette C-05699/65

National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., 25 February 1996

Audiocassette

Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description):

"NACHC Opening General Session, Jack Geiger, M.D., 1 of 2."
First involvement with TDHC.
Personal understanding of program's purpose when it first came.
Plantation lifestyle, debt.
Personal background.
Schooling, interrupted by cotton harvest.
Work at Health Center enabled her to survive after husband died, get children through school.
Work as nurse aid making home visits.
Early Co-op member; work recruiting people.
Around 1980 Co-op started falling apart getting "Ron" [?] involved, bringing farmers in, pushing out old members, lost cooperative principles.

Audiocassette C-05699/66

National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., 25 February 1996

Audiocassette

Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description):

"NACHC Opening General Session, Jack Geiger, M.D., 2 of 2."

Expand/collapse Series 5. L.C. Dorsey, Jack Geiger, and John W. Hatch, 1963-2013 and undated.

Approximately 100 items.

Curriculum vitae, transcribed interviews, audio recordings, correspondence, newspaper clippings, and biographical information comprise the series. Materials pertain chiefly to the careers and professional interests of three pivotal figures in the Health Center's early years, Dorsey, Geiger, and Hatch.

L.C. Dorsey, 1970-2013 and undated.

Materials are curriculum vitae, correspondence, notes, clippings, transcripts of interviews, and audio recordings of interviews. In the interviews, Dorsey discusses community organizing, racism, class tensions in Mound Bayou, Miss., poverty, employment, civil rights work and vision, and the election of President Barak Obama. Early material pertains to her pursuit of graduate education with corporate and foundation funding through the "Dorsey Project."

Folder 278	"The Dorsey Project," 1970-1972 Chiefly correspondence pertaining to the corporate and foundation funding of L.C. Dorsey's graduate education in social work at State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook. Corporate sponsors included Coca-Cola Company, General Mills, and H. Walter Thompson Company. In a 16 September 1971 memorandum to General Mills and Thompson executives, Milton Moskowitz writes, "I have just returned from a visit to Mrs. L.C. Dorsey, who is now installed with her six children in a three-bedroom house at Selden, L.I....L.C. is excited about the prospects for the coming year, as indeed she should be, since she has landed in an experimental program that meets her needs perfectly." Included are budgets for Dorsey's tuition, room, board, and other expenses.
Folder 279	"The Dorsey Project," 1972 "Report of Activities Engaged in by Mrs. L.C. Dorsey While Attending The State University of New York at Stony Brook, New York. Submitted to the Black Women Community Development Foundation."
Folder 280	"The Dorsey Project," 1973-1974 Documents pertaining to Dorsey's enrollment in law school at the University of Mississippi.
Folder 281	"The Dorsey Project," 2009 Letters from Milton Moskowitz to Jack Geiger concerning the corporate financial support of L.C. Dorsey's graduate education. Also included is a letter from Jack Geiger to historian John Dittmer in which he discusses documents about Dorsey that he is sending to Dittmer.
Folder 282	L.C. Dorsey's resume, circa 1971
Folder 283	"Dorsey selected as new director of the health center," circa 1987
Folder 284	L.C. Dorsey's curriculum vitae, circa 2000
Folder 285	L.C. Dorsey's curriculum vitae, circa 2001
Folder 286	Biographical information on L.C. Dorsey, 2003
Folder 287	"Mississippi Pays Tribute to Dr. L.C. Dorsey," 2013
Folder 288	Notes on L.C. Dorsey, undated
Folder 289	Transcript of interview with L.C. Dorsey, 1992 Lightly annotated transcript of L.C. Dorsey's interview conducted by Robert Korstad for Duke University's Southern Rural Poverty Collection. "I grew up in the plantation system of the Mississippi Delta, and really for a long time I thought everybody was on plantations. I really didn't have a sense of poverty...everybody I knew...lived in the same conditions."
Folder 290	Transcript of interview with L.C. Dorsey, 11 December 2008 Dorsey discusses the Community Health Center Movement in Mississippi, the white and black power structures in the Mississippi Delta, the local African American community's trepidation about the Tufts Delta Health Center, conflict between the Health Center and the local medical community, community organizing in the Mississippi Delta, the civil rights movement and Mississippi's racist power structure, the NAACP, John W. Hatch, Jack Geiger, her personal background, struggles and career, the need for national health insurance, and the election of President Barak Obama with interviewer Morissa G. Sobelsen of Tufts University. "There were people who were afraid to come to the health center, and that was part of what my job was about to spread information and let people know what was going on, and get people to come in and see for themselves, rather than to listen to the rumor mill....So at first what I got them to do was bring their children or bring old people from the families and communities and just talk to people to see how they were treated. And the way the health centrers had set up their encounters, how they treated people, careful to call people with courtesy titles, making sure they answered people's questions, making sure they talked slow, everybody talked about the fact that people from Boston talked fast."
Audiocassette C-05699/37	L.C. Dorsey, 23 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Part I: Dr. L.C. Dorsey, Director, Delta Health Center." First knowledge of Tufts project in 1966. Learning what "unemployed" and "unemployable" meant. Knocking on doors, organizing community; community's apprehension/skepticism because of knowledge of Tuskegee, etc. Class tensions in Mound Bayou. Sees reactions from locals responding to hiring of poor was as analogous to white farmers to black women being paid to work in federally-funded programs. Even outside of University resources, major current tension around control of the project. Hiring practices and considerations in 1967. Food Co-op. Co-op changes and struggles. Backlash included attempts to burn down dental service, robbery of electronics at TDHC.
Audiocassette C-05699/38	L.C. Dorsey, 23 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Part II: Dr. L.C. Dorsey, Director, Delta Health Center." Reasons for erosion of comprehensive services: 1) location, struggle for control of resources the center controls and 2) government's approach to problem-solving, ignoring racism and criminal activities. How do you hire people who are committed to communal, not just self interests. Role modeling: number of young people exposed to health center who pursue health professions. Impact of L.C. Dorsey's early education. Greatest joy: seeing young people want to take over the work and vision.

Jack Geiger, 1963-2013 and undated.

Materials are transcripts of interviews, audio recordings of Geiger discussing the Health Center, correspondence, and documents pertaining to Geiger's involvement in the Medical Committee for Civil Rights and to honors he received including the naming of a public health program at George Washington University for him and Count D. Gibson. In interviews, topics addressed include genesis of the idea for the Health Center and the choice of Mound Bayou, Miss. for its location, Mississippi's medical community and its opposition to the Health Center, the Office of Economic Opportunity, environmental health, "the black struggle" and whites' role in that struggle, civil rights, racism, and community organizing.

Folder 291

Medical Committee for Civil Rights, 1963

Jack Geiger's application to the New York based organization.

Folder 292

Transcript of interview with Jack Geiger, 22 April 1992

Geiger discusses his early life and background, work in South Africa, Mound Bayou, Miss., Tufts-Delta Health Center, community organizing, civil rights, socioeconomic conditions, and environmental health with interviewer Robert Korstad. "Health and health services can be a highly effective source of intervention for social change....The primary determinant of their [poor communities] health status is income and environment, physical, biological and social economic environments...The question, therefore, is instead of just standing in the revolving door grinding out clinical health services, is how to use health services to intervene in these other arenas. Number one, that means defining health services more broadly so that it includes environmental interventions, community organization, food, nutrition, water, and even more broadly education and training."

Folder 293-294

Folder 293

Folder 294

Partial transcript and tape log of interview with Jack Geiger interview, 28 March 2001

Geiger discusses the early years of the Tufts-Delta Health Center, the community health center movement, the OEO, and the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR). "One of the interesting things about the early years of the community health center movement is that there were a number of places in other parts of the country when community health centers started, that there was substantial resistance...St. Louis and other places I can think of, there was substantial resistance by black physicians, who saw this as an invasion of their turf and an economic threat."

Folder 295

Tribute to Jack Geiger, 2005

Copy of a statement read by United States Senator Hillary Clinton for the Congressional Record. "He helped found and head the Physicians for Human Rights, a national organization of health professionals that investigates human rights abuses and war crimes and provides medical aid to victims of oppression. This organization shared in the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1998."

Folder 296

Correspondence, 2005-2009

Includes a printout of an email message concerning the American Medical Association's 2008 apology to African American physicians for the association's racism.

Folder 297

Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy, 2007

Description of program at George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services.

Folder 298

Remarks at dedication of Delta Health Center to Dr. H. Jack Geiger, 2013

Remarks delivered by Robert Smith, M.D. and executive director of Central Mississippi Health Services, Inc.

Folder 299

Transcript of interview with Jack Geiger, undated

Digital Folder DF-05699/3

"Jack Geiger: History of the TCCHAP Project," undated

Audio recording.

Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-03 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)

Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description):

Background on MCHR, involvement in Mississippi, Holmes County, Jo Disparti.
December 1964 civil rights meeting in Greenville; health center idea first emerges.
Contact with Tufts and OEO.
Search for southern site, Panola County, Mound Bayou.
Opposition from Mississippi medical establishment, State Medical Association.
Jackson Daily News "plot."
Meetings with white doctors and health officials, Archie Gray.
Meeting with Bob Smith. Strategic search in Georgia. Meeting with Hollingsworth; meeting with Health Department, Tumanello.
Hollingsworth turns under pressure, no longer an ally.
Meeting with local doctors at Court House, support from Dr. Russell.
OEO delays, rumors that Meharry [Medical College] is applying for OEO grant to start Bolivar County health center.

Digital Folder DF-05699/13

"Jack Geiger," 2 May 1971

Audio recording.

Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 7-03 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.)

Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description):

Reaction to OEO mandating the merger of health center and hospital, distressing series of events surrounding takeover.
"Self destructive" to continue the fight.
Reflection on "Racism of Ross, ignorance of Cooper," carpetbagger mentality within OEO.
Hospital board's presence (Walter Wilson, Earl Lucas) in Washington, D.C., seen as "real" just because they are black and from Mound Bayou.
TDHC Health Council not going to Washington, D.C., so OEO sees Geiger as the only visible spokesperson.
Hatch's concerns that Health Council not be abandoned.
"What you come to is the sense that on one hand this is implacable and impossible and the agency is falling apart and this is going to get worse, on top of my own desire to find some other way against the moral issues of how do you get out, how you quit, how do you leave?"
Geiger "replacement" as neglected issue. "It seemed to me that in a way the project has run for so long...around my determination and my optimism, that it took a lot of talking to get heard, heard that that was no longer the case, that was not how I felt."
Many variables, many sets of interests--Geiger, Stonybrook, Lucas et al, health center staff, etc.
L.C. [Dorsey] for "merger with negotiation" so that Health Council can maintain authority.
Reflection on personal sacrifices made by the project, difficulty of finding willing, let alone able, successor.
Meeting with Pellegrino, present moral commitment.
Discuss feasibility of involving University of Tennessee.
Challenges of being "in the middle of a black struggle." Need whites to catalyze social change, but without adjudicating black struggle.
Potential "dirty pool" strategies: go after hospital's accreditation to make OEO pay attention; go after hospital's fraud (misuse of Medicaid and Medicare).

John W. Hatch, 1992 and undated.

Materials are an interview transcript, an audio recording of Hatch speaking, biographical information, curriculum vitae, and annotated copies of documents from the Delta Health Center Records held at UNC Chapel Hill. Topics addressed in the transcribed interview and audio recording include his childhood in the American South, military service in the Korean War, the NAACP and his father's participation as a minister, northern migration of African Americans and the impact of migration on southern African Americans, community organizing, community representation and participation in health councils, identifying the community's priorities, and the Health Center.

Folder 300	John W. Hatch, 1992 and undated Contains a 1992 curriculum vitae and an undated document titled "Related Preliminary Work of John W. Hatch." Includes notes, biographical information, and annotated documents from the Delta Health Center Records held at UNC Chapel Hill.
Folder 301	John W. Hatch, undated Includes notes, biographical information, and annotated documents from the Delta Health Center Records held at UNC Chapel Hill.
Folder 302	Transcript of interview with John W. Hatch, 1992 Hatch discusses his childhood in Kentucky, Arkansas, and North Carolina, his father an African American pastor and member of the NAACP, black newspapers during the mid-twentieth century, his education, military service during the Korean War, social work and community organizing, and Tufts-Delta Health Center with interviewer Robert Korstad.
Digital Folder DF-05699/2	"John W. Hatch," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-02 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Mechanization. Northern migration of black people. Impact of migration on local population. Hatch's own interest in this issue, in light of social heritage, northern migration and Boston-area professional focus on the social needs of migrants. Developing participatory structure (Health Associations and Health Council) based on organization model of Southern Baptist Church. How Health Associations work, types of support offered by health center staff. Children as highest health center priority; elderly as highest community priority. Community outreach, door-to-door visits, learning local meanings of "health care." Group meetings, identifying community's concrete priorities.

Expand/collapse Series 6. Interviews and Conversations, 1966-2002 and undated.

Approximately 60 items.

Transcriptions and audio recordings of interviews with members of Mound Bayou's predominantly African American community served by the Health Center and with Health Center staff, including African American physicians, comprise the series.

Topics addressed by community members include sharecropping, mechanization of farming particularly in cotton harvesting, authoritarianism of the plantation owners, poverty, church, health and medical needs, home remedies, impact of poor health on economic security, healthcare and denial of medical care before the Health Center, environmental conditions and housing, participation in the civil rights movement and the cost of participating, racial discrimination, community organizing, volunteerism and giving back, and the economic impact of the Health Center. They also discuss the Farm Cooperative, the community center, employment with the Health Center, the small number of women in leadership roles at the Health Center, healthcare received, African American fraternal orders, African American community leaders, displacement of preachers and teachers as sole community leaders, "Uncle Toms," and local politics and the election of black leaders.

Major topics addressed in the interviews with Health Center staff include Mississippi's medical community and political structure, public health in the Mississippi Delta, sanitation, the Office of Economic Opportunity, malnutrition and food insecurity, birth control, leadership in the Health Center, Medicaid and Medicare, Medical Committee for Human Rights, Medical Committee for Civil Rights, clinical services, field nurses and nurse mid-wives, mental health in the community, the community health center movement, and community organizing.

Also included are a few interviews with local physicians not affiliated with the Health Center, an interview with the former white mayor of Mound Bayou, Miss., Earl Lucas, a recording of songs sung in a Baptist church in Symonds, Miss., and a recorded conversation John W. Hatch had with school children about public health and the impact of American and Caribbean slavery.

Transcripts, 1966-2002

Folder 303-304

Folder 303

Folder 304

Transcript of conversation between Jack Geiger and S. Bellin, 5 October 1966

"History of TCCHAP Project, particularly Mississippi." Geiger discusses the work of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Mississippi in 1964, OEO and Sargent Shriver, the medical community in the Mississippi Delta, public health in the Mississippi Delta, resistance to the development of a community health center, his colleague Count D. Gibson, and the Mississippi's political establishment.

Folder 305

Transcript of interview with Ann Haendel, 4 March 1976

Haendel discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity, Sid Mauer, Jack Geiger, health centers, and community organizing with interviewer Peter K. New.

Folder 306

Partial transcript of Civil Rights Conference, Virginia, 19 June 2002

Discussion about the community health center movement, Mississippi, and civil rights today and in the past with Jack Geiger, John W. Hatch, and L.C. Dorsey. At the end of the conversation, Geiger said, "Most of the civil rights movement of the 60s and 70s was focused on the South, and did not get very far in the North. And the South provided such a glaring exception that it was relatively easier. We had some unprecedented events in a way. In Selma, 10,000 people got on planes, trains, and cars, spontaneously, no one organized it, to Selma in a kind of moral crisis and moral outrage. That doesn't happen with the kind of issues faced in the North."

Audio recordings, 1966-2002 and undated

Digital Folder DF-05699/6	"Mrs. Murray," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-06 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Farm life as a child, involved in farming. Didn't like housework so she became "one of the boys." Limited time or money for education. Worked as maid at local hospital in Shelby, promoted to nurse aide, applied and was accepted to TDHC as nurse aide. Sense of solidarity with and responsibility to poor people. Impact of mechanization on farmers and families. Response to medical crises during childhood: home remedies and prayers. Rarely able to see doctor because of constant debt. Needed plantation owner's permission to go to doctor. Plantation owner also determined whether kids could go to school. Limits of acquiring food and money through sharecropping arrangement. Struggle to raise children after husband got sick with mumps and couldn't work: stood up to unsympathetic plantation owner. "Farm life is just no life." Stresses of husband's illness on family, unable to acquire social service or provide for children's schooling or other needs.
Digital Folder DF-05699/7	"Mrs. Murray continued, Health Association Chair in Shelby," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-07 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): More on financial and social impact of husband's illness, fighting back. Role of the Health Association and Council in voluntarily reaching out to people, bringing them in to access needed services. Sense of responsibility, giving back, through voluntary service: "If the government is providing all this for us, then why can't we provide something for ourselves?" Becoming chair of Health Association, feeling of connection with "the people who needed help, just as I needed help." Describes early Health Association organizational process, officer election, inclusion of younger people, acquiring space. Setting up community center. Recollections of jobs threatened by civil rights participation.
Digital Folder DF-05699/8	"Agnetta Soderberg," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-08 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Sharecropping background. Racial discrimination. Picking cotton as child. Use of herbal remedies. Transition from manual to mechanized cotton harvesting. Northern migration. Significance of Mound Bayou for Mississippi. Local hospitals. What she was taught about white people. Why the Health Associations were organized. Importance of Health Association contact center for communications. TDHC's non-medical benefits to the community. Additional benefits of community organizing activities.
Digital Folder DF-05699/9	"Mrs. White," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-09 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Purpose of home care nursing aide--discusses case of 6-year-old patient with encephalitis in comatose state; taught mother how to care for patient, encourage immunizations. Environmental conditions in home; TDHC provides hospital bed, linens, supplementary foods. Attitudes of people she cares for. Services Tufts has provided. Schedule of average day. Encountering child with serious injury who had fallen out of a tree three months ago--Shelby doctor had said was fine. Sensitive approaches to patient outreach and communication. Sometimes has to drive 150 miles per day to reach patients. Working in a comprehensive, collaborative manner; patients refer to Tufts as "Mr. Tufts."
Digital Folder DF-05699/10	"Mrs. Young," undated Audio recording. Processing information: Original open reel tape number: 5-10 (Please note the Library does not hold the original open reel tape.) Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): List of meat and vegetables produced at co-op. Purpose of co-op board meetings. Clothing consignment. Co-op purpose and vision. Going to a white doctor, no thorough physical exams. Civil rights movement makes plantation owners less likely to let sharecroppers grow gardens. Acquiring food and other services as a sharecropper. Are things better or worse off now than under bossman? Troubles with OEO. Supplementary food program. Involvement on co-op board, development of board. Benefits of being a member of the co-op. Co-op members donating food credits to less fortunate.
Audiocassette C-05699/1	Elnora Rich, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Elnora Rich, Black female, age 57." Member of Health Council, involved in TDHC since first search committee arrived in Mound Bayou, 16 children. What health and health care was like before TDHC. First interactions with Tufts. Personal awareness of needs of poor whites, not just poor blacks. Sees leadership of program shared between local blacks and Tufts. Feelings about merger between TDHC and Hospital, recalls troubling experiences accessing health care through fraternal orders, and how the leaders of the fraternal orders have always sought power in the community and takeover of TDHC. Governor's veto of Health Center grant. Impact of program on people's quality of life, sense of empowerment. Involvement in church not diminished by work with Health Center. Home remedies. Who she sees as local and national black leaders. Not as many women like herself and L.C. Dorsey active in leadership roles in the community. Fear about whites' backlash for involvement in civil rights organizations. Wish Geiger, Hatch, and James could come back to help them deal with the struggle. TDHC professional turnover problematic.
Audiocassette C-05699/2	Willie Mae Osbourne, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Willie Mae Osbourne, Black female, age 43." Working with Jo Disparti. Uncomfortable services offered by Public Health Department clinics. Very active in civil rights movement with SNCC. Talks about positive experiences with health services at TDHC. Helping set up Farm Co-op. Transportation as a particularly beneficial service. Merger and problems brought on by government involvement. Home remedies. Changes to living conditions. Tufts' positive influence on hospital. Farm Co-op. Work with supplemental food program: what it is, how it works. Education programs. Leaders in Bolivar County: L.C. Dorsey. Criticism facing leaders.
Audiocassette C-05699/3	Edward Scott, 21 September 1972 Audiocassette Poor sound quality. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Edward Scott, Black male, age 49, Leflore County, Miss." First knowledge of TDHC. Positive impact of Center. Inadequate care provided by Public Health Service. Health Council. Farm Co-op. Taborian Hospital. Earl Major topics addressed in the interviews with Health Center staff include Mississippi's medical community and political structure, public health in the Mississippi Delta, sanitation, the Office of Economic Opportunity, malnutrition and food insecurity, birth control, leadership in the Health Center, Medicaid and Medicare, Medical Committee for Human Rights, Medical Committee for Civil Rights, clinical services, field nurses and nurse mid-wives, mental health in the community, the community health center movement, and community organizing. Conflict with governor. Outcome if conflict is not resolved.
Audiocassette C-05699/4	Johnny Todd, 1972; Annie Mae Griffin, 11 July 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Johnny Todd, 1972: "Johnny Todd, Black male, age 28, Health Center employee, Rosedale, Miss." Background. Responsibilities as head of Rosedale Health Association. First impressions of project. Health status and care prior to TDHC. Midwives, grannies, natural remedies. Importance of systemic change, role of environmental health services. Civil rights involvement. Change in health status since TDHC's arrival. Conflict and power struggles in Mound Bayou. Social and political changes in Bolivar County. Current crisis with governor's veto--anticipated outcome. Co-op, and reaction to Co-op criticisms. Role of Health Council in current struggle. Local and national leaders. Teachers and preachers no longer considered leaders; problems with the "new" leadership. How he anticipates health care services changing in the future. Side B, Annie Mae Griffin, 11 July 1972: "Miss Annie Mae Griffin, Black female, age 21, Shelby, Miss." First knowledge and impressions of TDHC. How programs benefit community. Knowledge of recent changes at Health Center, governor's veto of grant, potential closing of hospital. Personal health improvement since TDHC established. Opinion of Lucas and local politicians. Benefits resulting from Health center project. People she identifies as leaders. Struggles for survival. Difficulty finding job. Dealing with health crises. Hopes for children. Impact of grant veto on future health services.
Audiocassette C-05699/5	Dave Caldwell, 25 September 1972 ; Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Dave Caldwell, 25 September 1972: "Dave Caldwell, Black male, age 38, Symonds, Miss." Health Council and transfer issues. Environmental health and social services as most important programs. Importance of community participation. Agricultural background before work with TDHC. Involvement in church. Scenarios where people are denied health care because of lack of money--community helps raise money for members. Home remedies. Drug problems. Growing up, survival. Side B, Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972: "Mr. Jim Taylor, White male, age 35, Mound Bayou, Miss." Same as Tape #23, Personnel issues, development. Changes in overall health of population, particularly senior citizens; long way to go in health improvement of younger people. Local politics. Center's interest in indigenous home remedies. Government veto of health care center grant.
Audiocassette C-05699/6	Joseph Clemmons, 24 August 1972 ; Bella Sims, 3 September 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Joseph Clemmons, 24 August 1972: "Mr. Joseph Clemmons, Black male, age 61, Alligator, Miss." First knowledge of Health Center. Plantation life before TDHC arrived. Medical care for children. Midwives. Home remedies. Denial of health services because of lack of money. People helped each other more in the past; nowadays less communication and communal support. Has Health Center lived up to expectations? Impact not only medical, but preventative, environmental, etc. Fraternal orders. Care denied for sick child. Impact of Health Council. Sense of Hatch as running the project. Involvement in other organizations. Struggles to survive during Depression. Present struggle at Health Center. Impact of election of Stanton. Side B, Bella Sims, 3 September 1972: "Ms. Bella Sims, Black female, age 25, Shelby, Miss." First knowledge of TDHC. Treatment at Health Center. Knowledge of Mound Bayou. What "health" means. Involvement in church. Struggles to survive in the past.
Audiocassette C-05699/7	Group including Ted Carter, 18 September 1967 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Hollis, Don [?], and Ted Carter, Mr. Thurmond." Researcher gives report describing Mr. Hollis, new teacher in Mound Bayou, Miss., activist, interested in getting involved in TDHC. Gives report on Ted: intention to sue Tufts Project for "being stepped on." Ted is upset about how project is being run, mistakes that Geiger et al made, shifted blame for project's problems on Ted Carter. Ted resigns from position with STAR. Don working under Ted as STAR recruiter. Ku Klux Klan member allegedly working for STAR and manipulating program. Gives report on Don: Explains that Ted may have mental health problems, alienated himself amidst the conflicts. Work as a STAR recruiter. Idea for STAR program to help address health needs of recruited people.
Audiocassette C-05699/12	Mozella Gray, undated; Earl Pruitt, undated Audiocassette Low volume recording. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Mozella Gray, undated: "Mrs Mozella Gray, Black female, age 62, Duncan, Miss." First awareness of Health Center. Challenges accessing health care prior to establishment of Health Center. Belonged to Order of Friendship, but could not afford to keep paying. Farm Co-op. Impact of health center on community. What would happen if Tufts closed? Home remedies. Involvement in church. Impact of election of first black elected official. Survival during difficult times, community support. Leaders in the community. Teachers and preachers no longer the leaders. Side B, Earl Pruitt, undated, low volume recording
Audiocassette C-05699/13	Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Jim Taylor, White male, age 35, Mound Bayou, Miss." Social Worker with TDHC, Interim Director of Community Health Education. How he got involved, community organizing work in work in Boston and meeting John W. Hatch. Initial impressions, what he learned and felt. Community participation. Criticisms of TDHC programs. Changing expectations about Health Council, co-op, etc. Food co-op growth and changes. Changing role of Health Council. Competition and rivalry on the Council. Impact.
Audiocassette C-05699/14	Ed Haynes, 22 August 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Ed Haynes, Black male, age 31." First involvement with Farm Co-op, previous work as a teacher. Problems poor blacks faced in obtaining health care. Malnutrition. Positive impact of Co-op. Geiger, Hatch, etc. in position of making decisions. Anticipated outcome of current crisis. Impact of Lucas election and vision.
Audiocassette C-05699/15	Robert Hollingsworth, undated; Earl Pruitt, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Robert Hollingsworth, undated: "Dr. Robert Hollingsworth." Work in Haiti. Came to Shelby, hospital closed, set up own practice in 1965. Meeting Geiger and Gibson. Sense of admiration, but also fear about the "invasion of my territory from a financial standpoint," was in debt, and Shelby was in the middle of their target area. TDHC was an "efficient operation." A good industry employing 300-400 people would have been a greater local asset. Impact on health--"people kept alive longer"--but biggest impact an economic one. Working out an arrangement for Hollingsworth to see patients. Turning away patients; personal feelings about payment issues. Changing needs since Medicare and Medicaid. Side B, Earl Pruitt, undated: "Mr. Earl Pruitt, Interview, part II, Duncan, Miss." Response to criticism that environmental health services are doing work that white plantation owners should be doing. Services offered by Co-op. Response to criticism that Food Co-op keeps people down. Church, civil rights involvement. Issue of blacks' dependence on whites. Extreme poverty in the Delta, lack of help from surrounding community. Impact of election of first elected black official; Pruitt's work in getting people to vote. Who are the local and national leaders? Will young people come back to help the community? Present crisis at the TDHC.
Audiocassette C-05699/18	Audrey Moody, undated; Hermon Johnson, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Audrey Moody, undated: "Miss Audrey Moody, Black female, age 23, Duncan, Miss." First knowledge of Tufts, initial and current impressions of TDHC. Farm Co-op, Health Associations. Summer job at TDHC allowed her to go to college. Important local leaders--work of Mrs. Pearlia B. Robinson. How people accessed health care before the health center. Dr. Hollingsworth, and rumor that he refuses to see patients because of lack of money. Social and economic impact of TDHC on community. Involvement in churches and other activities. Farm Co-op: needs it meets, how it works. Impact of election of first black elected official, Stanton. Broad impact of Health Center on local community. Home remedies. Civil rights activities. Graduate school. How people endure difficult periods--resources and support of community. Teachers and preachers: leaders or Uncle Toms? Side B, Hermon Johnson, undated: "Mr. Hermon Johnson." Earl Lucas's leadership, able to meet payroll and start projects without costing taxpayers. Survival during hard times, in the past and recently. Growing up on sharecropping plantation. Ways family survived--grow gardens, fish, etc. Leaders in Bolivar County--e.g,. Aaron Henry. "Teachers and preachers" as leaders has changed. "New" leaders. What would happen if poverty programs ended. Governor's veto of grant, community's reaction to potential loss of Health Center. Why is the governor vetoing now, not previously. Role of local elites in "opening the door." Negative experiences with Tufts, positive opportunities outweigh them. Educational opportunities, hope that people will return to the community.
Audiocassette C-05699/19	John Perkins, 30 August 1972 Audiocassette Significant background noise. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Rev. John Perkins, Black male, age 42, Jackson, Miss."
Audiocassette C-05699/20	Delaise Rich, undated Audiocassette Poor quality recording. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Delaise Rich, Black female, age 23, Symonds, Miss." First introduction to TDHC. Familiarity with Tufts programs; particularly likes prenatal and family planning programs. Importance of environmental health services. Civil rights activities, voter education. Positive impact of project--"people looking better and eating better food." Impact if Tufts project were to end: people would leave. Changes in people's health behavior. Preachers and teachers no longer sole community leaders. Recalls people facing hard times, nothing to eat. What would happen if TDHC is closed down.
Audiocassette C-05699/21	Joanna Roberts, 4 September 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. Joanna Roberts, M.D., White female, age 34, Mound Bayou, Miss." Upward mobility, education and stress: Talks about Mrs. Holmes, an educated Mound Bayou woman but whose stress is exacerbating heart disease; tense relationship with Health Center administration. Issue of dependency. Important role of field nurses. Less neurosis here because people have "concrete problems" that middle class people don't. Opinion that Health Associations and Health Council have had limited impact on Health Center. Opinion of Farm Co-op--that poor people thought they might "own" the Co-op, but never felt that way about their control of the Health Center. Discomfort with emergency room services, post-merger. Social, economic, medical improvement resulting from program. Lucas administration "stupid." Thoughts about the future of the Health Center.
Audiocassette C-05699/23	Joanna Roberts, September 1972 ; Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972 Audiocassette Poor sound quality and significant background noise. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Joanna Roberts, September 1972: "Dr. Joanna Roberts, TDHC Internist." First knowledge of, and personal path to, Tufts-Delta Health Center. Obstacles to practicing medicine at the hospital. National political relevance and trends. Extent to which the Center has improved health status and health care access. Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972: "Mr. Jim Taylor, White male, age 35, Mound Bayou, Miss." Same as Tape #5, Personnel issues, development. Changes in overall health of the population, particularly senior citizens; long way to go in health improvement of younger people. Local politics. Center's interest in indigenous home remedies. Government veto of Health Center grant.
Audiocassette C-05699/24	J.A. Westerfield, 22 August 1972 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. J.A. Westerfield, M.D., White male, age 57, Merigold, Miss. L.C. Dorsey describes challenges trying to meet with Dr. Westerfield. Had to wait with other patients in black waiting room--very dirty, tiny, stuffy room. Dorsey introduces herself to Westerfield as someone who was a former patient of his when she lived on a plantation. Sees health care centers as waste of tax dollars, based on lies about health care access for the poor. Claims 25% of his patient load is charity care; turns away patients who are drunks, abusive, "wrong attitude." Feels Center has not been a service to the community.
Audiocassette C-05699/25	Lucinda Young and Lena Witherspoon, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): Side A, Lucinda Young and Lena Witherspoon, undated: "Mrs. Lucinda Young, Ms. Lena Witherspoon, Community Development Worker, Black female, age 24, Winstonville, Miss." Personal background. Manager for supplemental food program in Marigold, spin-off of TDHC. Origins of supplemental food program. Program's relationship with community hospital. First contact with Tufts in 1968. Denied medical care to hospitals and white doctors. Hollingsworth denies care "because of the fight." Fight "between government and 2 hospitals." Hollingsworth collecting Medicare. Importance of environmental health services. Myths/criticisms of environmental health "fixing up white people's houses." Tufts, in a short time-frame, is doing a better job than the community hospitals ever have. Impact on community, use of preventative medicine. Board member of Farm Co-op; impact of Co-op. Myths/criticism of Co-op "keeping people on plantations." Involvement in Health Associations; impact, challenges getting people together. People (including L.C. Dorsey) who may come back as leaders and health professionals as TDHC. Divisions in Mound Bayou community since Earl Lucas recently became Mayor; "he has deceived us." Who are the current leaders in the county. Survival before health center (worked at white cleaners); moment when she thought she couldn't make it; difficulty accessing welfare when married. Why governor has left the program alone until now. Why Marigold was considered a ghost town. From Winstonville, Miss., near Mound Bayou, all-black town; born in Shelby. First knowledge of Tufts, first impressions. Importance of environmental health services, Co-op. Sees the people as running the project. Side B, Lucinda Young and Lena Witherspoon, undated, continued: "Ms. Lena Witherspoon, Community Development Worker, Black female, age 24, Winstonville, Miss. (continued), Mrs. Minnie Johnson, Black female, Marigold, Miss." Talks about personal and family quality of life improvement since Health Center came. Work with Co-op and Health Association. Previous involvement with church. Home remedies. Conflict with governor's vetoing the grant. Why governor is vetoing the grant now. How consumers of services are concerned about the program's future; inaccuracy and bias in local newspapers. Communication lapses between clinician and patient. Blacks in politics. Impact of Mayor Lucas's election. Struggles while living on plantation. Whom she identifies as local leaders. Lived in Marigold, Miss., for whole life; 5 children at home, 2 sons going to college--Alcorn and Delta State. Husband farms, she used to pick cotton. First knowledge of TDHC. How people got health care before the center -- her family went to Dr. Westerfield. Why she thinks Marigold is considered a ghost town. Sense that the project is run by people from the North. Farm Co-op. Changes in community since Health Center came. Dropped out of Knights and Daughters when child with leukemia not given needed services. Describes hard times when she didn't think her family would make it. Involvement in church. How do you think the white folks feel about the poverty programs. Opinion about governor's veto of project grant. How employment at TDHC affects people's personalities.
Audiocassette C-05699/26	Robert Hollingsworth, undated Audiocassette Tape cuts out. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. Robert Hollingsworth." Policy around responsibility of providing care to all, issues around bill payment. Relationship with Mound Bayou Community Hospital. Was it a good idea for the Health Center to involve untrained local people in the administration of the Health Center? Why has there been an increase in chronic diseases like heart attacks among blacks in this area? Impact of poor people's stress on their health. Impact of the election of first black official since Reconstruction on social/political lives of people in the area, both black and white.
Audiocassette C-05699/27	Jim Taylor, 4 September 1972 Audiocassette Poor sound quality and significant background noise. Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Jim Taylor, White male, age 35, Mound Bayou, Miss." Relationship with Mississippi state government--constraints and conflict. Conflict resulting from TDHC/Community Hospital merger. Difficulties faced as a white leader. Will people come back who were trained. Opportunities the merger offers.
Audiocassette C-05699/28	James Anderson, 15 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. James Anderson." Work with COFO, Medical Committee for Human Rights. Present challenges for health and community development. Need for health education reform. Importance of the health center model. Role of health centers in increasing numbers of black physicians.
Audiocassette C-05699/29	John Brown, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. John Brown, Farm Co-op Manager, 1968-1972." Background as farmer. Explains why Co-op was just as important as Health Center to local people. Co-op vision, purposes, and development. Family background. Experiences with health services at TDHC. Contact Center in Cunnison--one of twelve in Bolivar County. Environmental Health services. Changes at Co-op: leadership roles usurped by people unacquainted with agriculture; became motivated by profits, rather than serving the poor. Doesn't agree with idea of extending Co-op to all of Bolivar County, not just North Bolivar County. Under pressure of Father McKnight, in 1980s the Co-op decided to elect farmers to its Board. Finch against the idea. Major legal and political struggles develop. Advice for future: keep the focus on the poor; don't let the middle class, educated people "jump on top."
Audiocassette C-05699/30	Clara Mae Caldwell, 23 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Clara Mae Caldwell, Symonds, Miss." First knowledge of Tufts project. Involvement with Health Council. Economic impact of the Health Center. Presence of Health Center caused no problems or conflicts. TDHC not very different from hospital. Dr. Dorothy Ferebee.
Audiocassette C-05699/31	Bobbie Calhoun, 27 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Bobbie Calhoun, Mound Bayou, Miss." First heard about Health Center. What she heard it would do--reduce mortality rate. Her association with TDHC--nutritionist, home economist. Community orientation of TDHC, as opposed to hospital. Economic impact on community. Conflicts that arose in community--can't answer. Help teaching people skills, sewing, cleaning, etc. in their homes. Most important services--medical and environmental. Advice to young people about serving people in the Delta--"be ready to be focused on service."
Audiocassette C-05699/32	Jack Cartwright and Barbara Brooks, 22 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Jack Cartwright and Barbara Brooks, Rosedale, Miss." First knowledge of TDHC, civil rights involvement, early impressions. Roles at Health Center. Environmental health work. Developing empowerment, self-esteem. Impact of Health Center on the economics of the community. Project "bringing unity" to Bolivar County. Why federal funds should be devoted to Tufts, not Hospital; addressing social determinants. Higher salaries at TDHC causing social disruption. No single "best" service or program--people needed all of them. Shock to community when services were phased out. Advice for the future.
Audiocassette C-05699/33	Children, 17 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Children of Symonds, Symonds, Miss." John W. Hatch and his graduate students meet with school children in Symonds to discuss public health. Hatch introduces Ernest Michelle, a medical student from Haiti, and talks to the students about slavery in the United States and Caribbean.
Audiocassette C-05699/34	William Crockett, 2 September 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. William Crockett, Black male, age 87, Former Health Council President and farmer, Mound Bayou, Miss." First awareness of health project. Family acquired, held onto land. Knights and Daughters of Tabor. AME Church. Health Council. Why people didn't want the Health Center to come in. What could be done to make things better for raising children now. Rest of tape (and side 2) mostly casual reminiscing about family, life in Mississippi.
Audiocassette C-05699/35	William Crockett, 31 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. William Crockett, Black male, age 87, Former Health Council President and farmer, Mound Bayou, Miss." Impact of TDHC on career choices of students from Mound Bayou.
Audiocassette C-05699/36	Ethel Sheridan Dennis, 28 February 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Ethel Sheridan Dennis, Civic Leader and business woman, one of first people John W. Hatch met in Bolivar County." Limited health services, Taborian Hospital. How Health Center services differed from Hospital, particularly with regards to education. Impact of so many outsiders "descending" on community. Economic disruption. Political turbulence following founders' departure--presence of Health Center setting political problems in motion. Nuances of "improvement" in community?
Audiocassette C-05699/39	Will Finch, 29 January 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Will Finch, Black male, age 86, Former (and first) Co-op President, former plantation worker, Cleveland, Miss." Background on sharecropping, plantation, railroad. Work organizing Co-op. Organizing Simon, Miss. Work with Health Council. Knights and Daughters of Tabor, other fraternal orders. Conflict/competition between TRHC and fraternal orders. If you had to do the co-op over again, what would you do differently? Better to simply rent farmland? Advice for starting a co-op. Management problems.
Audiocassette C-05699/40	Will Finch, 20 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Will Finch, Black male, age 86, Former (and first) Co-op President, former plantation worker, Cleveland, Miss." Personal background, life in Symonds, Miss. Working to get running water in Symonds. Involvement in Food Co-op.
Audiocassette C-05699/41	Mary Hampton, 20 February 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Mary Hampton, Retired Nurse Aide, age 66," Background. Hired at TDHC. Challenges facing people now. Work at satellite clinic.
Audiocassette C-05699/43	John W. Hatch, 27 February 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. John W. Hatch, moderator Early Health Center Workers Reunion." Informal conversation (side 1 and 2) with Marvin Crump, Izella Smith, Alice Lee, Teatratha Butler, and S.P. Cooper reflecting on: personal and family paths, patient relationships, home nursing, environmental health, interactions with local white physicians, boycotting banks and other institutions, fears of losing jobs during merger, narrowing of services, L.C. Dorsey's current leadership, etc.
Audiocassette C-05699/44	Maude Hemphill, 29 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Maude Hemphill, Winstonville, Miss." First learned about Health Center. How the Health Center differed from the hospitals. Sharecroppers had limited access to health care, little money. Election to board of Delta Health Council. Places she traveled with the Health Council. Feelings about impact of Health Center on community--access to health care, educational opportunities, jobs. Doesn't feel there was "conflict with community," but there was some skepticism within the community, white and black. Why it would not have been a better course of action to give funds to hospitals in Mound Bayou. Conflict when hospitals merged. Services offered by Health Center. Health Council's role in determining local needs. Did high salaries employees receive cause social disruption in community Environmental health and Farm Co-op as the Health Center's most important services. Involvement in Farm Co-op board. Participation in courses offered through Mary Holmes College.
Audiocassette C-05699/45	Aaron Henry, 6 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Aaron Henry." Fraternal order and Taborian failed to serve all people. The "crusade" of gaining acceptance of Mississippi power structures. How Health Center impacted power relations between blacks and whites. Young people encouraged to pursue education and health careers. Erosion of comprehensive mandate. Wisdom or advice for future--be aware of turf issues: "when people agree to have something done, they are also admitting that they have not done it."
Audiocassette C-05699/46	Oneida Holmes, 26 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Ms. Oneida Holmes, Mound Bayou, Miss." First knowledge of Health Center. Initial impression of what Health Center would do. Work as a receptionist. Managing transportation. Only her grandson went to TDHC--he went on to become a doctor. Impact of TDHC on community "was beautiful." Problems or conflicts--not the Health Center's fault, but the fault of people in the community. Hospital unequipped, staff poorly trained.
Audiocassette C-05699/47	Pauline Holmes, 24 February 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Pauline Holmes, Retired Nutritionist, Mound Bayou, Miss." First knowledge of Health Center through husband's involvement. Geiger stayed at Holmes' house when he came to Mound Bayou. Always aware of precarious conditions at hospitals, limitations of service. Discussion about Dorothy Ferebee, public health clinics on plantations. Johnny Todd and influence in Rosedale. Impact of Center on Mound Bayou--many people never been to doctor. Limited health care alternatives. Important TDHC prioritization of prevention. Arrangements between plantation overseers and workers for health care. Friction between town leaders and Health Center: "I would like to see it done just as it was." TDHC better equipped than hospitals to deliver health care and utilize federal funds. People who pursued training and education opportunities thanks to the Health Center. Negative influence of TDHC: made some people dependent, rather than a stepping stone towards independence. New challenges people are facing: more children going to school, but a diminished educational system.
Audiocassette C-05699/48	Preston Holmes, 14 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Preston Holmes, Retired Postmaster, TDHC Board Member." First knowledge of Health Center. Concerns about predominantly white institution working in an all-black town. Knights and Daughters of Tabor as "first place blacks could go and expect proper treatment." Differences between TDHC and Hospital. Near-bankruptcy of hospitals in late 1960s; grant and merger.
Audiocassette C-05699/49	Hermon Johnson, 30 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Hermon Johnson, Mound Bayou, Miss." Heard about Health Center. His association with the TDHC via STAR program as "Economic Development Specialist" helped finding land for Center, developing board, organizing community. Helped identify leaders in community, set up Council. Impact of TDHC on economics of the community. Conflicts that arose in community--"inevitable, insignificant"--sense of threat. Better to give resources to TDHC than hospital. Most important service. How TDHC was different from Health Dept or Hospital--empowerment, comprehensiveness. How high TDHC salaries may have caused disruption in community. Advice to young people about serving people in the Delta.
Audiocassette C-05699/50	Ollie Bell Lewis, 5 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Ms. Ollie Bell Lewis, Beulah, Miss." First knowledge of Health Center during involvement with STAR. Community development work. Impact of the Health Center on community, new access to health care that plantation system had never afforded. Economic stimulus from outside professionals. How Health Center differed from Health Department or Hospital--"everything under one roof." Community Development Workers as most important facet of TDHC's work. Advice for future people interested in working in Delta. Financial and educational advancement for self and family.
Audiocassette C-05699/51	Wesley Liddell, 14 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Wesley Liddell, Former Mayor of Mound Bayou, Miss." First heard of Health Center idea. How people accessed health care prior to TDHC, Knights and Daughters of Tabor. Benefits of Health Center coming to town: jobs. Better for funds to have gone to Taborian or Sarah Brown? Project bringing many new people into town. Environmental health services. Differences between services at Health Center and Hospitals. Local people who pursued education and training opportunities. Tension between Health Center and town of Mound Bayou. Why people at Health Center worked against Liddell's election, unaware of his critical support to the Center's early development. Benefits to a professional living in a small town.
Audiocassette C-05699/52	Earl Lucas, 27 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Earl Lucas, former Mayor of Mound Bayou, Miss." First introduction to Health Center project, talking with Geiger and Gibson. Association with the Health Center--helping them come to Mississippi, and especially Mound Bayou in the face of white opposition. Involvement in formation of Mound Bayou Community Hospital. Looking back, don't think it would have been better for the government to give money directly to the Taborian Hospital; positive, comprehensive impact of Health Center on people. Major economic impact on community in terms of jobs, but has dramatically moved away from that now. Merger was "totally underfunded" and therefore unable to carry out mission. How Health Center differed from Health Department or Hospital. Salaries of health professionals in rural areas should be the same as salaries in metropolitan areas. Importance of transportation services. Sliding scale system is ridiculous; services should be free. Advice about serving people in rural areas of the Mississippi Delta: need research tailored specifically to the Delta.
Audiocassette C-05699/53	Olly Neal, 6 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Olly Neal, Mentor/activist, Lee County Comprehensive Health Care Center." Origins in health center movement: work with supplemental food program leads him to administration of Lee County Center. Meets MCHR, Geiger, Gibson, Delta Heath Center staff. Running for political office. Philosophy of participation entirely community-based. Negotiations and meeting with governor. Getting young people involved. Non-medical programs offered in Lee County.
Audiocassette C-05699/54	New Hope Baptist Church, 5 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "New Hope Baptist Church, Symonds, Miss." Recordings of church congregation singing religious songs. Viola Wilson from Symonds, Miss., sings several songs and hymns.
Audiocassette C-05699/55	Essie Norwood and Murray Nelson, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Ms. Essie Norwood, DHC x-ray technician. Mr. Murray Nelson, early employee (sanitation) at TDHC and founding member of Co-op." Grew up in Shelby. Background. First knowledge of TDHC. Work at Health Center when hospital closed. Impact of Health Center on community. How you define health. Life in Mississippi for blacks--powerlessness. First knowledge of TDHC. Favorite aspects of work at TDHC: Co-op. Was TDHC necessary in light of Taborian and Sarah Brown's existence? Meaning of health. Differences between services at Health Center and services at private doctor. Advice for future projects in the Delta.
Audiocassette C-05699/56	Lizzie Scott and Cynthia Lewis Keith, 29 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Miss Lizzie Scott and Miss Cynthia (Lewis) Keith, Rosedale, Miss." Mrs. Scott's first knowledge of TDHC when son was sick; Health Center healed son and eventually helped him get to college. Nurse aides' work caring for kids, cleaning homes, preparing meals for needy families. Miss Keith recalls her involvement in '66 or '67 as Health Association worker, helping needy families in their homes, making medical referrals, and seeking input from the community about their needs.
Audiocassette C-05699/57	Aaron Shirley, 18 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. Aaron Shirley." Beginnings of Health Center movement. Practicing medicine in segregated Mississippi, first black resident at the University of Mississippi in 1965. Work with Medical Committee for Human Rights--looked upon as subversives. Aspects of Health Center he most appreciated and carried with him: non-medical services, empowerment of people. "Non-medical piece threatened the establishment to the degree that it would expose the traditional system for what it was." Impact of Health Centers on the poor. On growth and economic viability of the black medical establishment. Middle class conflict, TDHC relationship with Taborian and Sarah Brown Hospitals.
Audiocassette C-05699/58	Robert Smith, 15 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Dr. Robert Smith, Jackson, Miss." First interest in medicine. College at Tougaloo. Medical School at Howard. Recruited from Chicago for Berlin Crisis by Mississippi, despite tiny number of black physicians--"lit my fire!" Dinner with Medgar Evers the night he was killed. A week later, recruited to Atlantic City demonstration against American Medical Association for their discriminatory practices. Formed Medical Committee for Civil Rights. Few black physicians in Mississippi (20 or 30), but only about 1/2 were treating Civil Rights Workers. Formed Mississippi division of MCCR--Smith became Southern Field Coordinator. Meet Count D. Gibson and Jack Geiger. Set up clinic in Milestone. Gibson and Geiger come back after Freedom Summer, Greenville meeting.
Audiocassette C-05699/59	Alla Fair Turner, 8 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Alla Fair Turner, Mound Bayou, Miss." First knowledge of project. How TDHC would differ from hospitals--didn't have to be a member. Part of Health Council; liaison between TDHC and community. Economic impact of Health Center: jobs. Social impact of Health Center--"it seemed just like a big family, and everybody was getting served." Went to Washington, D.C., and on retreats with board; received valuable training. L.C. Dorsey's dynamic leadership. Merger with hospital and power struggles. Bad for community to have hospitals shut down, buildings dilapidated. High salaries at TDHC caused conflict. Health Center met all the needs of the individual. All the programs were needed. Advice for future--"you can't help yourself without helping someone else." Health Center doesn't provide all the services it used to.
Audiocassette C-05699/60	H. Ward, undated Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Rev. H. Ward, Pastor, Mount Olive Church, Mound Bayou, Miss., Community Organizing Consultant with Community Health Action, 1966-1967." How Hatch and Rev. Ward met. Problems with development contractor from Los Angeles, MBDC, and Mr. Laythem. Rev. Ward's church and congregation. Health Center's role in Bolivar County, importance of jobs; Ward's son and daughter employed by Center. Training and education--sanitarians, Romulus.
Audiocassette C-05699/61	Irene Williams, 18 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Ms. Irene Williams, Employee at DHC since 1967." Personal background, sharecropping background. Recruited by Jo Disparti. Maternal and child welfare, prenatal care, home visits. Home health work. Working mother and full-time student. Sister Mary Stella, nurse-midwife. Sister Mary Stella's assistance with children's education. Others who pursued educational opportunities through support of Health Center. Opposition to Health Center, sense of threat. Doctor denied her birth control because he didn't think she could afford it. What is your definition of health? Health care provided at TDHC made you feel like a person. Do differently: separate home health services from the larger Health Center. Advice for future people working in Delta: be sensitive. Rewards of working in a rural area.
Audiocassette C-05699/62	Viola Wilson, 7 July 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Viola Wilson, Symonds, Miss." President of Senior Citizen's Board at TDHC. Effect of Health Center on community. Most important services of Health Center. Advice for future generations interested in doing work in the Delta--get God on your side first.
Audiocassette C-05699/63	Shelton Woodley, 26 June 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mr. Shelton Woodley, Sanitarian, Mound Bayou, Miss." First knowledge of Health Center. Importance of comprehensive services that address the underlying environmental and social factors that influence health. Early development of Center. Starting environmental health program, at the core of the TDHC. Sanitarian training. Economic impact of Health Center. Social impact on community. Conflicts with community: sense of threat to local leaders. Local hospital motivated by profits, not patients' well-being.
Audiocassette C-05699/64	Lucinda Young 1992 Audiocassette Tape Log (adapted from the donor's description): "Mrs. Lucinda Young, Community Leader, Co-op Board Leader, age 76, Shelby, Miss." First involvement with TDHC in 1967 as community organizer. Civil rights involvement, other community and church activities. Running supplemental food program. Recalls major leadership problems during 1970s. Attitudes toward L.C. Dorsey--people thinking her degree was fake. Lack of employment opportunities in 1990s. Contact center run by community to distribute goods and services, e.g., clothing. More selfish, less altruistic mindset now versus 1960s; people have forgotten "where they came from." Co-op has fallen into the wrong hands.

Expand/collapse Series 7. Correspondence, Printed Materials, and Other Papers, 1947-2016 and undated (Addition of March 2017).

Approximately 200 items.

Acquisitions information: Accession 103046

Materials in the addition are similar to those found in the original deposit.

Folder 307	Correspondence, 1967-1968
Folder 308	Correspondence, 1969-1971
Folder 309	Correspondence, 1992 and 2014
Folder 310	Minutes of physicians' meeting, 30 August 1968
Folder 311	Press releases and fact sheet, 1965
Folder 312	"Health Profile of a Community," undated
Folder 313	"The Tufts-Delta Health Center: A Progress Report," October 1968
Folder 314	Health Center staff list, undated
Folder 315	"U. of C. Student Walkout Sparks Move to End Race Discrimination," 8 December 1947 Clipping from the Chicago Sun with Jack Geiger pictured.
Folder 316	"Hunger and Sickness Afflict Mississippi Negro Children," 25 March 1968 Clipping from the New York Times refers to the Tufts -Delta Health Center. Story by Richard D. Lyons.
Folder 317	"Answers to Lyons' story," 1968
Folder 318	Clippings, 1960s
Folder 319	Clippings, 1960s
Folder 320	Clippings, 1960s
Folder 321	Clippings, 1970s
Folder 322	Clippings, 1989 and undated
Folder 323	Catalyst magazine of Boston SHO and MCHR, March 1969 "Catalyst is the journal of the Boston Student Health Organization and Medical Committee for Human Rights. Its purpose is to encourage and facilitate communication within and between the two groups; to provide a medium for internal education (what we can teach each other) and external education (what others can teach us); and to encourage tie creativity that is all to [sic] often stifled in the health fields."
Folder 324	"Health & Social Change: The Urban Crisis" by Jack Geiger, January 1968 Lowell Lecture.
Folder 325	Factor Affecting Community Health by Leonard L. Inge, 9 December 1970
Folder 326	Untitled article, 17 November 1968 "In April 1967, a Senate subcommittee on poverty went to Jackson, Mississippi for public hearings on the starvation issue. Some senators, taking it seriously and knowing it wasn't really 'an issue' at all but a crime, gave the extra push to travel 100 miles northwest to Bolivar County--the nation's third poorest and showplace for every misery-statistic in the bureaucrat's bureau."
Folder 327	"Reap What You Sow," 2007 "A doctor, mentor, and activist nurtures young minds destined for medicine." Article is signed by the subject of the piece, Bob Smith.
Folder 328	"Caring for the Poor in the 21st Century: Enabling Community Health Centers for a New Era" by Kevin Fiscella and H. Jack Geiger, 2014
Folder 329	"Organized Health Care and the Poor" by Donald L. Madison, undated
Folder 330	"Community Control: A Study of Community Corporations and Neighborhood Boards" by Howard W. Hallman, 1969
Folder 331	"The Bright Promise of Neighborhood Health Centers" by Judith Randal, 1968
Folder 332	"Rural Health: OEO Launches Bold Mississippi Project," 1967
Folder 333	"The People's Misery: Mother of Diseases" in Public Health Classics "An Address, Delivered in 1790 by Johann Peter Frank Translated from the Latin, with an Introduction by Henry E. Sigerist."
Folder 334	"Social Medicine in South Africa in the Mid-Twentieth Century: The International Context" by Shula Marks, undated
Folder 335	"South Africa's Early Experiment in Social Medicine: Its Pioneers and Politics" by Shula Marks, 1997
Folder 336	"John Hatch on Community Organizing in the Mississippi Delta, 1965," undated
Folder 337	"A Public Health Pioneer," 2016 "H. Jack Geiger helped catalyze the community health centers movement."
Digital Folder DF-05699/33	"Second HBHE Retrospective," 2008 Video. Department of Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE), University of North Carolina School of Public Health.
Digital Folder DF-05699/34	"The Community Health Center Movement - An Oral History" Video.

Expand/collapse Series 8. Out in the Rural: Documentary Film on Delta Health Center, 1970 (Addition of April 2018).

2 items.

Acquisitions information: Accession 103349

Processing information: Title and description compiled from film leader and existing OCLC WorldCat record.

Out in the Rural: A Health Center in Mississippi is a short documentary film on the Delta Health Center and the Mound Bayou, Miss. community that it serves. Film student, Judy Schader Rogers, produced and directed the film in the fall of 1969 and winter of 1970 with support from Jack Geiger, the Delta Health Center staff, and the surrounding community. The film documents the broad vision of a community health center involved in far more than traditional medical diagnosis and treatment, as well as the faces, crops, and living conditions of the poor, African American, and rural community who lived in Mound Bayou, Miss. at the time. The collection contains a 16mm moving image copy of the film, as well as a digitized access copy made from the film print.

Film F-05699/1

Out in the Rural: A Health Center in Mississippi, 1970

16mm moving image film

650 ft. (20 minutes)

positive ; color ; sound (optical)

Digital Folder DF-05699/35

Out in the Rural: A Health Center in Mississippi, 1970

1 video file (.mp4)

Digitized version of F-05699/1.

Expand/collapse Items Separated

Audiocassettes (C-05699/1-66)
Film (F-05699/1)
Oversize Paper (OP-05699/1-6)

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Collection Number: 05699 Collection Title: Jack Geiger Collection on the Delta Health Center, 1946-2016

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Expand/collapse Series 1. Delta Health Center and Columbia Point, 1963-2009 and undated.

Correspondence, 1966-1981 and undated.

Meetings, 1966-1992 and undated.

Audio recordings of meetings, 1965-1967 and undated.

Environmental Health, 1969-1971 and undated.

North Bolivar Farm Cooperative, 1966-1972 and undated.

Folder 30

Folder 31

Folder 32

Folder 33

Folder 34

Folder 35

Reports, Papers, and Congressional Testimony 1963-2009 and undated.

Folder 55

Folder 56

Court Papers, 1990-1994 and undated.

Personnel, 1966-1994 and undated.

Folder 84

Folder 85

Expand/collapse Series 2. Mound Bayou, Miss., Hospitals and Healthcare, 1966-1993.

Tufts-Delta Health Center, 1966-1993 and undated.

"Struggles," 1966-1969 and undated.

Collection Number: 05699

Collection Title: Jack Geiger Collection on the Delta Health Center, 1946-2016