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“Resurrection Men” in Dallas: The Illegal Use of Black Bodies as Medical Cadavers (1900–1907)

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Abstract

Although illegal in Texas in the early twentieth century for the bodies of indigents to be used as medical cadavers, archival accounts document Dallas’s early medical schools duplicity in such acts, with secret agreements between medical schools and city and county officials. Evidence of African-American bodies stolen for use as medical cadavers was also uncovered archaeologically during the Freedman’s Cemetery Project in Dallas, Texas, in the early 1990s. The repercussion of these and other acts of racism and exploitation are explored.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Edward Tennant and Clete Rooney, for their admirable service as draftsmen. The staffs of the Texas and Dallas History Department of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library (Dallas), the Dallas City Hall Records Department, and the Dallas County Administration Building all must be thanked for providing access to key archival documents. For forming and supporting the original Freedman’s Cemetery Project, many thanks are extended to the Environmental Affairs Division of the Texas Department of Transportation. The quality of the Freedman’s data is entirely due to the hard work of the staff of the original Freedman’s Project; in this vein I would like to personally thank Keith and Cindy Condon, and Rolando L. Garza. Finally, the heaviest debt that must be acknowledged is to those individuals who were the ultimate source of study, the 1,157 men, women and children exhumed from Freedman’s Cemetery. This study is part of a continuing effort to make their disturbance, required of construction and “progress,” be paid in full with insight and remembrance.

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  1. Department of Anthropology and African-American Studies Program, University of Florida, 1112 Turlington Hall, P.O. Box 117305, Gainesville, FL, 32611-7305, USA

    James M. Davidson

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Correspondence to James M. Davidson.

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Davidson, J.M. “Resurrection Men” in Dallas: The Illegal Use of Black Bodies as Medical Cadavers (1900–1907). Int J Histor Archaeol 11, 193–220 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-007-0029-3

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