Even decades after the Civil War, tensions between African Americans and whites were prominent. Adding to the anger and distrust was the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment conducted by the U.S Public Health Service (PHS) to research the effects of syphilis, which was a highly lethal disease in the 1930s. This controversial experiment by a government sanctioned agency exposed the strikingly racist white government and its supremacist views over the "lower class" black Americans. The promise of treatment and money prompted many of the patients, whom were all poor blacks, to sign up under false pretenses. The PHS had never had any intention of curing these patients, but rather they wished to continue studying them until they deceased. Even when a viable cure, penicillin, was discovered in the 1940s, doctors under the experiment refused to cure their patients. More shameful than that was, the repeated denials of wrongdoing by the federal government. As the media caught wind of the experiment, Americans across the country called foul play as they condemned the PHS for its shameful wrongdoings. Most affected were the poor rural African Americans who grew ad deep seeded mistrust of the U.S federal government following this event. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was an exploitation of poorly educated blacks in the United States that not only revealed the dogmatic attitudes, shown in the political cartoon, many whites had over the black "guinea pigs" but also reinforced the severity of the social divide which existed in racial groups during the late 1930s and early 1940s.

            Racial prejudice and bigotry did not end with the abolition of slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation. America's "peculiar institution" was so ingrained into the Southern way of life that there was bound to be racial tensions. Added to the equation was the paternalistic attitude of many whites, especially those who owned slaves, over the blacks. Even before the Tuskegee Experiment, blatant racism was everywhere. A series of laws called the Jim Crow laws reinforced the separate but equal doctrine

blatant racism was everywhere. A series of laws called the Jim Crow laws reinforced the separate but equal doctrine (Davis). In the majority opinion on the court ruling of Plessy v. Furguson, Justice Henry Billings Brown stated that there should be "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" (Plessy v. Furguson). This case meant that blacks and whites could, and subsequently would, be separated based on their race. Although under law, the separation of black and white facilities was only allowed if they were to be equal, in actuality, blacks usually had inferior accommodations, because the whites felt they were more deserving and thus better than the blacks. This well established supremacist opinion was already prominent in the general psyche of Americans leading up to the Tuskegee Experiment. The Experiment merely led to a greater exaggeration of the separation, which already existed, between the two races.

             It is no surprise then when blacks were not included within the realm of social reforms that swept the nation in the 1930s. The "blacks did not figure prominently in the early plans of social hygienists. These reformers directed their movement towards the middle-class Americans like themselves" (Jones 48). This was mostly because of the mentality that blacks and whites had of each other. The blacks felt that whites were trying to cheat them out of their money because they were not educated enough to understand about modern medicine. They did not trust the medical practices, preferring to use their own methods of treating diseases which often did not work. In addition, white physicians felt that when it came to the treatment of syphilis, blacks could not restrain themselves when it came to sexual activity (Jones 24). Thus, when the issue of health care was brought up, white doctors felt that the blacks' sexual mentality meant that it was futile to try and treat them. This assumption that blacks were ignorant added to the barrier between the races. In addition, African Americans in the 1930s were predominantly poor. Since there was not a national health service instated, doctors and medical checkups were expensive. When faced with the dilemma of spending their hard earned money of food or health care, most blacks preferred to buy food rather than get a checkup, which many doubted was necessary at all. For the few blacks who could afford medical care, many were refused because of racist white doctors who refused to treat them. This racial bigotry prevented many blacks from getting the proper health care, even when they could afford it. Consequently, black death rates were much higher than the death rates of whites.

One of the major contributors to the deaths of blacks in that time period was the sexually transmitted disease, syphilis. Syphilis is a commonly occurring disease which has three stages of symptoms, with death usually occurring at the third stage. The first stage Syphilis "through direct contact with a syphilis sore" (Center for Disease Control), and symptoms include a single sore called a chancre, a small painless bump on the skin. The symptoms of the first stage usually heal themselves and can often pass by unnoticed. The second stage is composed of a skin rash and lesions on the skin which heal on its own (Center for Disease Control). The time between the second and third stages can last between a few weeks to thirty years depending on the person (Jones 3). However, after that time, the infected body becomes to break down. Tumors form and internal damage occurs on vital organs throughout the body usually resulting in the death of the host (Center for Disease Control). The bacteria causing syphilis especially damages the heart, thus many patients die of heart complications induced by the syphilis.

Doctors in the 1930s knew that syphilis was fatal yet until the invention of penicillin, they had no notion of how to treat the disease. Old remedies of blood letting and herbal mixtures proved to do nothing to cure the disease. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was praised to be a great project because the physicians would finally be able to discover what syphilis did to the body and in that way they could save patients who had it. However, halfway though the experiment penicillin was discovered which could have easily cured the syphilis bug. At that point, the experiment should have stopped immediately and the patients should have been treated. Yet the patients were not treated, and as a result, many died. Every death could have been prevented in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and the fact that the physicians saw the blacks as expendable and did not save their lives is a disgraceful show of racism. The black participants' lives were worth less than the little amount of data that they obtained through the study.

Before diseases and bacterial infections were studied carefully and understood, doctors had little idea of how to treat diseases, which made disease prevention key to staying healthy. Thus in 1798 the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps was created by John Adams to help the spread of diseases (Garlson). By 1914 the institution was shortened to just the Public Health Service of the PHS and the institution had expanded to the prevention of diseases in all the armed forces (Garlson). In 1912, new legislation was passes which enabled the PHS to study and investigate human diseases (Garlson). Committees were immediately sanctioned to study some of the major endemics in the time. Included in the diseases to be studied was syphilis. The syphilis disease was an enigma to the medical community because it did not respond to any treatment of the time. Of all the diseases that the PHS studied, the syphilis study was the most controversial because of the repercussions that ensued.

The experiment by the Public Health Service to study syphilis was called the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and it lasted from 1932 to 1972. The experiment involved 399 men who all contracted syphilis (Brunner). All the men were poor black men from Macon County Alabama who were in the late stages of the disease. They "used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it [took] syphilis to kill someone" (News and Observer 4). The term experiment is misleading for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was actually just a study of the patients and how syphilis spread and killed the patients. Even though the PHS officials claimed that the patients would be promised the treatment, in actuality they did not receive any (The Talking Drum). They were observed regularly and had regular checkups. From the start, the entire study was highly unorthodox and poor science. None of the patients was told they were carrying syphilis. The men were merely told that they were being treated for having a disease called bad blood which could have been any on numerous things. A Professor Johnson, whose full name was never recorded, said he "discovered that 'bad blood' referred to many ailments … treatments for bad blood were expected to cure headaches, indigestion, pellagra, sterility" (Jones 73), as well as a variety of other symptoms such as sores. In essence, the men who were involved thought they were being treated for a mild illness. The ever trusting black men involved in the experiment trusted the physicians who examined them to cure them. All of the men were ignorant of highly deadly disease they were carrying. The promised treatment for their ailments was never given, and many of the participants died as a result. The researchers involved in the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment relied on the ignorance of the blacks to conduct their experiment .They did not care that 28 men would die directly of syphilis or that 100 more would be dead because of complications of the disease (Brunner). They used the men as guinea pigs not as real people. After the men had served their purpose then they were killed off. The physicians had little regard to the patients as people for they felt that they were inherently superior to the blacks.

Most of the patients were bribed into the experiment by small cash incentives and a burial insurance. The men were so poor that they could not reject what little money they were offered. The burial insurance was at best a sum of 50 dollars. In addition, the treatment and the medical checkups they received did little to no good as the patients were slowly dying of syphilis. Any smaller illnesses and ailments were negligible compared to the damage that syphilis was doing on their bodies. At the death of each patient, the PHS relied on the man's family's ignorance and the fact that the family was poor to obtain autopsy rights. The head nurse, Nurse Rivers, would coerce the families into allowing the PHS to perform an autopsy on the deceased by giving them money and by the fabrication and falsification of concern over the cause of death of the man. The nurse would question the family and act interested in the reasons for the patients' death. Eventually the families would wish to know how the patient died and pretending that she did not know Nurse Rivers would convince the family to release autopsy rights in exchange for a small sum of cash. All the while, the nurse was fully aware that the patient had died of syphilis. In that way, Nurse Rivers willingly took advantage of the ignorance of the men to further the experiment.

The Public Health Service relied on the fact that they could experiment and study on participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment without their objection, mostly because they knew that, the patients would not understand what was being done to them. The prevalent frame of mind at the time was that "scientific investigators formed an elite group within the medical community" (James 97). With that assumption in mind, the 399 men who participated in the experiment assumed that when they were told that they would be given treatment, that they would actually be treated. However, in reality they were not administered medication which would make them better. That is because the "supervisors had decreed that the men would remain untreated for syphilis" (James 168). So as the study continued the health of the participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment continued to decline.

            Some historians have argued that there was nothing wrong with the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment because the doctors could do nothing to treat their patients at that time; however, this proves to be false. It is true that early treatments which included blood letting and herbal tonics proved to be futile and sometimes more harmful than no treatment at all. In fact, if the patients were blood let or if they were given some of the tonics, which included mercury, they would have died from the treatment. In addition, there were periods on time in the experiment where penicillin had not yet been embraced as the standard treatment for diseases. At the very beginning of the drug's discovery, many scientists did not yet know how or what penicillin did. Thus, it is reasonable that they would withhold the administration of penicillin at first. However even with the emergence of penicillin as the universal treatment for ailments in the late 1940s, there was no change in the researchers' frame of mind. By then the drug was well studied and tested. The researchers had no excuse not to treat the patients with it. The only reason that could be surmised is that the physicians stuck to their vow of no treatment for the patients. Sadly, just a few treatments of penicillin would have ended the pain and suffering of the patients and saved their lives (The Talking Drum). However, no treatment meant no treatment. Even if it meant that, the subjects would die from the disease.

            Of the 399 men from Macon County that participated in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, not one of them was a Caucasian. Indeed, by the 1930s, the general population had stopped perceiving African Americans as property, yet many failed to realize that they were also human beings. This dehumanization of the black population is captured in the political cartoon, published in 1943 in the Baltimore Afro-American editorial. Although the artist of the cartoon is unknown, it is obvious how they feel about how the US government treated blacks. In the very center is a guinea pig that represents the black population. In the cartoon, the guinea pig is labeled "1400 Colored Soldiers" however judging by the time period (1943) that the author also very well could have been commenting on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment also. Sticking out of the guinea pig is a syringe that says "U.S. Army Sulfa-Drug Experiment". We can extend that reference to mean the entire US government and its programs. The cartoon is a striking comment on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment because the experiment is so similar to another government funded study focusing on blacks. The author clearly feels that the government is taking advantage of the blacks and their lives are meaningless, thus they are referred to as guinea pigs. This shows the great divide that existed between the two races; the whites clearly felt the blacks were inferior to them, so much so that they were willing to expend their lives for an experiment.

            The story about the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment stirred massive anger within the African American community when an article was formally published in the Washington Star on July 25th 1972. Prior to that, there were reports of the experiment in medical journals but most of the general public had no idea about it. The article was written by Jean Heller who interviewed one of the participants Peter Buxtun for information (Brunner). After the article was released, two viewpoints were formed. On one side were the scientists who were part of the experiment and also other researchers in the United States at the time. They felt that the experiment was necessary and that there was nothing wrong with using human volunteers to study the disease. To them the experiment was a success, for they were able to see how syphilis destroyed the internal organs as it proceeded to take over the host's body. On the other side was the general public, who condemned the experiment for its racist roots and its shameful disregard for human life. This group clamored for reprisal and compensation. They became so stirred up that a nationwide search was held to find the survivors of the experiment. Old records were dug out and vast amounts of resources were spent so that the PHS could save face. Even with these efforts, the public still condemned the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and the physicians who conducted the experiment.

The public's outcry reached a climax when the US government was sued and paid out 10 million dollars in 1974 in a class action suit to the survivors of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (Aboul-Saad). In all 28 men died directly of syphilis while nearly 100 others died from complications from the disease. (Brunner). Of the total 399 men, 40 of their wives were affected and 19 children were born with syphilis by the end of the experiment. (Brunner). Most of the survivors were treated with penicillin although the long term damage that syphilis had done on their bodies shortened their life expectancies dramatically. Some of the patients with milder cases of syphilis, the disease had not yet destroyed their bodies, lived normal lives. The experiment's last survivor, Fred Simmons, died in the year 2000 (NPR). With Simmons' death on February 5, 2000 and the death of Herman Shaw who died on December 3, 1999 the experiment was finally completed, all the patients had deceased just as the physicians had wanted in the first place.

            It is clear that the experimenters assumed that the participants would not know what was being done to them because the participants were poor and African American. The experiment reflected one of the worst cases of racism since the Civil War and slavery. In fact, repercussions for the experiment are still being seen today. The tensions that were created between African Americans and Caucasians were not restraint to the Macon County area. Indeed black communities all across America distrusted the predominantly white government from then on. As a result, even in the past decade it is difficult to convince African Americans to participate in government sponsored disease prevention and clinics. This is especially true in the case of the HIV/AIDs virus. It is not a far stretch for people who are disadvantaged to think that since it has happened once before, it could happen to them again. We can see that the experiment was a symbol of exploitation (Cannon), which many African Americans hold on to when dealing with AIDs treatment. As many as 22% of Alabama blacks around Birmingham said that they mistrusted the US government when it came to medical research (Levine). This single isolated event has shaped the mentality of blacks all across America. Even decades, after the experiment was completed the repercussions are drastic. It may be impossible for health officials to win back the trust of Americans, much less the African American communities. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is one of the most shameful acts ever performed by the United States Government and its exploitation of both the poor and its racist roots make it an event which will not be forgotten for generations yet to come.