Power to Heal (working title)

The desegregation of American hospitals in preparation for Medicare's rollout was characterized by commitment at the top and passion all around.  President Johnson decided that no segregated hospital would get Medicare funds. But in 1966, just 3 months before Medicare was rolled out, less than half of U.S. hospitals served African Americans equally.  In the South, only 25% did. The toll on the quality of life for black Americans nation wide was devastating. Building on momentum generated by the Civil Rights Movement and decades of activism amongst African American medical professionals, the federal government organized a massive hospital inspection effort to ensure that no hospital practicing racial discrimination would receive Medicare funding.  Chased by the Klan and followed by the police, these federal inspectors drove down dirt roads seeking out patients and their relatives and hospital janitors and health care workers in the Black community to collect information. Inspectors also met with hospital administrators, some polite and cooperative; some belligerent and resistant. With crucial help and pressure from the Civil Rights Movement, they were successful. By the implementation of Medicare on July 1^st, more than 90 percent of the nation’s approximately 6,000 hospitals were certified to be in compliance with the Civil Rights Act. In a mere 4 months thousands of hospitals had been desegregated bringing life-saving medical care to millions of Americans. Through the inspiring stories of people who experienced the impact of both segregation and integration and those who inspected hospitals and worked in them and of health workers—physicians and nurses, black and white—who provided care to Black people in hospitals and tents and homes, this documentary takes a close look at how segregation was dismantled in hospitals in both the south and the north, and how astonishingly successful the effort was. The film and accompanying website will show how when ordinary people act together, they can make extraordinary and lasting changes. Current efforts to implement health reform echo this struggle about poverty and race and states rights vs. the role of federal government, and may either entrench health disparities or effectively marshal the federal power of the purse, health and civil rights activists working for justice, and the grass roots support that shaped the successes of a half century ago to move the health care system toward equity.  This story has never been presented in the media. The project honors the 50th anniversaries of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Medicare Act.