Community Health, Municipal Services, and Police Brutality

Abstract

In the early 1950s, Birmingham and Jefferson County officials approved an urban renewal plan that included a major expansion of the Southside Medical Center (the hospital affiliated with what was then the Medical College of Alabama and today is the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s University Hospital.) The medical center’s expansion resulted in the displacement of 527 families, 484 of which were black. Efforts by the local NAACP and various others, including a series of public hearings about the matter, proved unsuccessful in forcing the city to amend the expansion plans to include provisions for the relocation of these families. In fact, despite the already high demand for the existing public housing complexes (and the fact that 403 of the displaced black families were eligible for such housing), the city disputed the need for the construction of any additional units. A court case challenging the city’s failure to provide equal relocation plans was dismissed at the District Court level, and NAACP lawyers did not pursue it any further because the small number of black homeowners among the displaced—most had been renters—needed the suit to be resolved before they could claim the money they were owed for their former homes.¹ By 1970, despite having sacrificed their homes to facilitate the city’s commitment to the medical industry, African Americans still found quality medical care difficult to obtain.²