978-1-58838-089-0
1-58838-089-0
$17.95 paperback
6" x 9"
176 pages
appendix, index
NewSouth Books |
In 1932, the
U.S. Public Health recruited 623 African American men from Macon
Country, Alabama, for a study of "the effects of untreated syphilis
in the Negro male."
For the next 40 years—even after
the development of penicillin, the cure for syphilis—these men were
denied medical care for this potentially fatal disease. The Tuskegee
Syphilis Study was exposed in 1972, and in 1975 the government settled a
lawsuit but stopped short of admitting wrongdoing. In 1997, President
Bill Clinton welcomed five of the Study survivors to the White House
and, on behalf of the nation, officially apologized for an experiment he
described as wrongful and racist.
In this book, the attorney for
the men describes the background of the Study, the investigation, and
the lawsuit, the events leading up to the Presidential apology, and the
ongoing efforts to see that out of this painful and tragic episode of
American history comes lasting good.
about the author
Fred D. Gray is one of the nation's leading civil rights
attorneys. At age 24, he was the lawyer for Rosa Parks, Martin
Luther King, Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which began the modern
Civil Rights Movement. His other cases and clients include the
Freedom Riders, the Selma-to-Montgomery March, numerous school
desegregation and voting rights lawsuits, and many others.
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