Article
ID: CBB004012193

Combatting the ‘Communistic-Mulatto Inspired Movement to Fuse the Two Ethnic Groups’: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, Sickled Cells, and Segregationists’ Science in the Atomic Age (2018)

unapi
Communism Science and politics Race Medicine Genetics Cold War Segregation 20th century, late Mississippi (U.S.) United States

Using the correspondence of George McIlhenny and Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission records as evidence, this article examines how state-sponsored segregationists manipulated developing knowledge of the genetics of sickle cell anaemia and Cold War rhetoric of American anti-communism to defy the 1954 US Supreme Court decision mandating racial desegregation in schools. The Commission benefitted from this moment when germ theory placed science beyond lay understanding, increasing its authority and potential for misrepresentation. The evidence reveals and enlarges our understanding of the logistics of medicalisation within a racial frame. It demonstrates state-level confidence in appeals to science as a source of authority sufficient to challenge Federal law. It shows how the mere appearance of familiarity with the developing subfield of genetics sufficed to place science in the service of racial segregation. Finally, it illustrates both the potential and the limits of these measures in the changing context of medicine and medical professionalisation.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB004012193/

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Authors & Contributors
Wolfe, Audra Jayne
Wang, Zuoyue
de Jong-Lambert, William
Busch, Andrew M.
Varel, David Alan
Marcucci, Olivia
Journals
Journal of the History of Biology
Journal of Negro Education
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
History of Science
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Publishers
University of Colorado at Boulder
Yale University Press
University of North Carolina Press
Springer
Louisiana State University Press
Los Libros de la Catarata
Concepts
Cold War
Science and politics
Communism
Race
Genetics
Segregation
People
Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich
Mendel, Gregor Johann
Davis, Allison
Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich
Müller, Hermann Joseph
Dobzhansky, Theodosius
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
China
Soviet Union
Moscow (Russia)
Nigeria
Mississippi (U.S.)
Institutions
Genetics Society of America
Special Operations Research Office
Rockefeller Foundation
Human Genome Project
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