The Hill-Burton Act (1927-1954, Section 12)
1946
In an early effort to integrate hospitals, the U.S. Congress passed in 1946 the Hospital Survey and Construction Law, better known as the Hill-Burton Act. Under this law, the federal government “provided millions of dollars in federal grants to states to build and improve hospitals,” but mandated that to receive such funds, the hospitals “had to provide services without discrimination.” 1 However, the same “nondiscrimination clause gave Jim Crow states an out by allowing them to create separate but equal facilities for their black citizens with federal monies.” 2
Citations
- Thomas Ward, Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2003).
- Ibid.