Public Writing

“Corpse Selling and Stealing were Once Integral to Medical Training,” The Washington Post, “Made by History,” July 17, 2022.

• Examines the history and legacy of corpse theft by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century U.S. medical schools.

“Apologies Alone Won’t Solve Structural Racism: We Need a Reckoning with the Racist Roots of U.S. Medicine,” Medical Humanities Blog, March 5, 2021, coauthored with Jacqueline Antonovich, Rana Hogarth, Elise Mitchell, Graham Mooney, Ayah Nuriddin, Lauren Maclvor Thomspon, Kylie Smith, and Alexandre White.

• A response to a JAMA Clinical Reviews podcast given the headline “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” We show that structural and individual racism are deeply intertwined, as evidenced by the history of medicine.

“Medicine, Racism, and the Legacies of the Morton Skull Collection,” History of Anthropology Review, 45, 2021.

• Considers the legacy of the Morton Skull Collection in the history of U.S. medicine.

“Medicalizing Black Military Service in an Age of Global Imperialism.” Black Perspectives. January 4, 2020.

• Review of the Khary Oronde Polk’s 2020 book Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948.

“No, Mr. President. Covid-19 is not easy for everyone to overcome.” The Washington Post. “Made by History.” October 7, 2020.

• Compares the callous and victim-blaming approach of President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 response to white medical elites’ neglect and victim-blaming of enslaved cholera victims in 1849.

“Why the University of Alabama Needed to Change Honors Hall’s Name.” AL.com (the website for The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, and the Press-Register). August 11, 2020.

• Explains the history of the infamous pro-slavery racial scientist Josiah Nott, and why the University of Alabama was right to change the name of Nott Hall.

“Power to the Patients: Teaching the History of Race and Medicine during COVID-19.” The Panorama: Expansive Views from the Journal of the Early Republic. May 26, 2020.

• Unpacks lessons about how to improve the U.S. healthcare system from teaching histories of black nurses in the 1793 yellow fever epidemic and the Black Panther Party.

“How Black Activists Sought Healthcare Reform: A New Documentary.” Black Perspectives. September 4, 2019.

• Review of the 2018 PBS documentary Power to Heal, which examines the desegregation of southern hospitals.

“White supremacy was at the core of 19th-century science. Why that matters today.” The Washington Post. “Made by History.” April 22, 2019.

• Analysis of a pending lawsuit against Harvard over the remains of enslaved people in light of the school’s history with supporting and teaching racial science in the nineteenth century.

“Blackface is just a Symptom of American Medicine’s Racist Past.” The Washington Post. “Made by History.” February 12, 2019.

• Editorial on the current Virginia Governor’s medical school photo in “blackface”, examining long trends in how medical students have performed racist humor and abused people of African descent’s bodies.

“Black New Yorkers and the Fight for the African Burial Ground from the Colonial Period to the Present.” The Blog of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery. January 16, 2019.

• Narrative of the desecration and protection of the colonial era African burial ground in New York City from its founding to the present.

“Turning a Master’s Thesis into an Article.” The Southern Historical Association Blog. October 1, 2018.

• Firsthand tips for history graduate students considering transforming their MA thesis into an academic article.

“Racist Medicine: A History of Race and Health.” Oxford University Press Blog. September 12, 2017.

• A brief overview of how early American doctors discussed the relationship between race, health, and the environment.

“Race, Genitals, and Walt Whitman in Dr. Leidy’s Lectures.” Fugitive Leaves: The Blog of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. April 13, 2017.

• A blog post examining how nineteenth-century University of Pennsylvania anatomy professor Joseph Leidy discussed race in his lectures.