MOUND BAYOU, Miss. 鈥 In the center of this historically Black city, once deemed 鈥渢he jewel of the Delta鈥 by President Theodore Roosevelt, dreams to revitalize an abandoned hospital building have all but dried up.
An art deco sign still marks the main entrance, but the front doors are locked, and the parking lot is empty. These days, a convenience store across North Edwards Avenue is far busier than the old Taborian Hospital, which first shut down more than 40 years ago.
Myrna Smith-Thompson, who serves as executive director of the civic group that owns the property, lives 100 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, and doesn鈥檛 know what’s to become of the deteriorating building.
鈥淚 am open to suggestions,鈥 said Smith-Thompson, whose grandfather led a Black fraternal organization now called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor. In 1942, that group established Taborian Hospital, a place staffed by Black doctors and nurses that exclusively admitted Black patients, during a time when Jim Crow laws barred them from accessing the same health care facilities as white patients.
鈥淭his is a very painful conversation,鈥 said Smith-Thompson, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1949. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a part of my being.鈥
A similar scenario has played out in hundreds of other rural communities across the United States, where hospitals have faced closure over the past 40 years. In that regard, the story of Mound Bayou鈥檚 hospital isn鈥檛 unique.
But there’s more to this hospital closure than the loss of inpatient beds, historians say. It鈥檚 also a tale of how hundreds of Black hospitals across the U.S. fell casualty to social progress.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 benefited millions of people. The federal campaign to desegregate hospitals, culminating in a out of Charleston, South Carolina, guaranteed Black patients across the South access to the same health care facilities as white patients. No longer were Black doctors and nurses prohibited from training or practicing medicine in white hospitals. But the end of legal racial segregation precipitated the demise of many Black hospitals, which were a major source of employment and a center of pride for Black Americans.
鈥淎nd not just for physicians,鈥 said Vanessa Northington Gamble, a medical doctor and historian at George Washington University. 鈥淭hey were social institutions, financial institutions, and also medical institutions.鈥
In Charleston, staff members at a historically Black hospital on Cannon Street started publishing a monthly journal in 1899 called The Hospital Herald, which focused on hospital work and public hygiene, among other topics. When Kansas City, Missouri, opened a hospital for Black patients in 1918, people held a parade. Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou included two operating rooms and state-of-the-art equipment. It鈥檚 also where famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer died in 1977.
鈥淭here were Swedish hospitals. There were Jewish hospitals. There were Catholic hospitals. That鈥檚 also part of the story,鈥 said Gamble, author of 鈥淢aking a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945.鈥
鈥淏ut racism in medicine was the main reason why there was an establishment of Black hospitals,鈥 she said.
By the early 1990s, Gamble estimated, there were only eight left.
鈥淚t has ripple effects in a way that affect the fabric of the community,鈥 said Bizu Gelaye, an epidemiologist and program director of Harvard University鈥檚 Mississippi Delta Partnership in Public Health.
Researchers have largely concluded that hospital desegregation improved the health of Black patients over the long term.
One 2009 study focusing on motor vehicle accidents in Mississippi in the 鈥60s and 鈥70s found that Black people were less likely to die after hospital desegregation. They could access hospitals closer to the scene of a crash, reducing the distance they would have otherwise traveled by approximately 50 miles.
An , published in 2006 by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that hospital desegregation in the South substantially helped close the mortality gap between Black and white infants. That鈥檚 partly because Black infants suffering from illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia got better access to hospitals, the researchers found.
A new analysis, recently accepted for publication in the Review of Economics and Statistics, suggests that racism continued to harm the health of Black patients in the years after hospital integration. White hospitals were compelled to integrate starting in the mid-1960s if they wanted to receive Medicare funding. But they didn鈥檛 necessarily provide the same quality of care to Black and white patients, said Mark Anderson, an economics professor at Montana State University and co-author of the paper. His that hospital desegregation had 鈥渓ittle, if any, effect on Black postneonatal mortality鈥 in the South between 1959 and 1973.
Nearly 3,000 babies were born at Taborian Hospital before it closed its doors in 1983. The building remained vacant for decades until 10 years ago, when a $3 million federal grant helped renovate the facility into a short-lived urgent care center. It closed again only one year later amid a legal battle over its ownership, Smith-Thompson said, and has since deteriorated.
鈥淲e would need at least millions, probably,鈥 she said, estimating the cost of reopening the building. 鈥淣ow, we鈥檙e back where we were prior to the renovation.鈥
In 2000, the hospital was listed as one of the most endangered historic places in Mississippi by the Mississippi Heritage Trust. That鈥檚 why some people would like to see it reopened in any capacity that ensures its survival as an important historical site.
Hermon Johnson Jr., director of the Mound Bayou Museum, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1956, suggested the building could be used as a meeting space or museum. 鈥淚t would be a huge boost to the community,鈥 he said.
Meanwhile, most of the hospital鈥檚 former patients have died or left Mound Bayou. The city鈥檚 population has dropped by roughly half since 1980, U.S. Census Bureau records show. Bolivar County ranks among the poorest in the nation and life expectancy is a decade shorter than the national average.
A community health center is still open in Mound Bayou, but the closest hospital is in Cleveland, Mississippi, a 15-minute drive.
Mound Bayou Mayor Leighton Aldridge, also a board member of the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, said he wants Taborian Hospital to remain a health care facility, suggesting it might be considered for a new children鈥檚 hospital or a rehabilitation center.
鈥淲e need to get something back in there as soon as possible,鈥 he said.
Smith-Thompson agreed and feels the situation is urgent. 鈥淭he health care services that are available to folks in the Mississippi Delta are deplorable,鈥 she said. 鈥淧eople are really, really sick.鈥
