Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party's Battle Against Medical Discrimination - History Book on Civil Rights & Healthcare Activism for Students & Researchers

Dr. Nelson demonstrates a thoroughly researched academically focused writing style that draws many memories of the '60's through the '80's together as the Panther Party sought greater social and legal justice.Her thesis extends the contention that the writings of Mao, Dr. Fanning, and Che Guevara led the Party to approach the issue of improving African Americans' health care access and availability. She expresses the view that this was the driving premise behind the Party opening a clinic in Berkeley, CA, next to North Oakland, and eventually requiring that affiliated chapters of the Party establish health clinics in their areas. Although she acknowledges that the West Oakland Health Center pharmacist and Dr. Small, who worked part time at the West Oakland Health Center, assisted in the Berkeley Clinic, as Dr. Small did much more for the Party over time, she avoids one major point.The West Oakland Health Center was the first federally funded locally controlled non-profit entity providing health care in its community in the United States. It was started by leveraging almost 1 million dollars of Public Health Service monies (demonstration grant funds) out of an earmarked 16 million which combined with several other in-kind and cash grants to amount to over 3 million dollars to start the Center which survives 54 years after initiation. The Panthers wanted community control and they saw how it worked in West Oakland, the place of the Party's birth. They were not able, in the period of '67-'69, to work with other community groups that sought similar goals, although they could have been able to join the West Oakland Health Committee if they had the stability and sense of common cause that was needed at that time. The West Oakland Health Committee, the precursor to the Board, West Oakland Health Center, was not a group the Party could work with. They did see the results of community control, far clearer than any philosophical writings, and that example much more strongly influenced their course of future actions than Dr. Nelson's writing reflects.Because I was the principal organizer in support of the West Oakland Health Council and the Center that they created, contracting with providers and their running the Center's affairs, I can attest to the way it was then--and the community's intense focus on overcoming insurmountable access and availability issues. After emailing Dr. Nelson, twice, to explore her research regarding the influence of the West Oakland Health Center model affecting the Panther's approach to equity, she has not responded.Hopefully, her future writings on very important issues can overcome the limits to academic research to extend supportable lines of thinking underlining the direction her subject takes in resolving issues of concern.