From Enslavement to Covid-19: A History of African American Health and Labor

During the COVID-19 pandemic, commentators opined that the high concentration of African Americans in dangerous and unsafe work and living environments exposed them to the virus at higher and deadlier rates than their Euro-American counterparts. In From Enslavement to COVID-19, Joe William Trotter Jr. delves into the historical context of this phenomenon.

Focusing on four historical periods--enslavement, emancipation, the industrial era, and the digital age--Trotter argues that rather than being anomalous, the fight for adequate health care and beneficial social service policies follows a similar trajectory as the movement of Black people from enslavement to freedom. Trotter emphasizes how the labor requirements of work shaped the African American encounter with disease, how white medical professionals developed stereotypes about the susceptibility of Black people to sickness, and how those professionals denied essential medical care to the country’s most vulnerable. From Enslavement to COVID-19 also highlights how people of African descent drew on their legacy of activism and community-building to improve their physical and mental conditions by creating programs and strategies to combat inequality and discrimination in the nation’s health care system.

Joe William Trotter Jr. is Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice at Carnegie Mellon University.