The Legacy Museum is the bedrock of social justice.
It is NOT a neutral space.
The mission of the Legacy Museum, dedicated to visual arts and bioethics, is to interpret the history of Tuskegee University through public health, science, and medicine. The museum encourages appreciation and understanding of the visual arts through the lens of bioethics.
Bioethics, broadly, deals with the moral and ethical treatment of human beings.
The museum is the result of the Official Apology of President Bill Clinton regarding a 40-year study that was carried out by the United States government without the consent or knowledge of the participants and their families. In the Apology, President Clinton remarks that the museum of the study will bring awareness in perpetuity. The study’s official name is The United States Public Health Service Untreated Syphilis Study in the Negro Male in Macon County, Alabama from 1932-1972.
This is the year 2022, and we are still managing the AFTERSHOCKS of this study and the ethical treatment of human beings whose forebears arrived in this country involuntarily.
New data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that reported annual cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States continued to climb in 2019, reaching an all-time high for the sixth consecutive year.
The newly released 2019 STD Surveillance Report found:
“Less than 20 years ago, gonorrhea rates in the U.S. were at historic lows, syphilis was close to elimination, and advances in chlamydia diagnostics made it easier to detect infections,” said Raul Romaguera, DMD, MPH, acting director for CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “That progress has since unraveled, and our STD defenses are down. We must prioritize and focus our efforts to regain this lost ground and control the spread of STDs.”
STDs can have serious health consequences. People with these infections do not always experience disease symptoms, but, if left untreated, some can increase the risk of HIV infection, or can cause chronic pelvic pain, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, severe pregnancy and newborn complications, and infant death.
Four exhibitions on view in the museum today. Two interpret bioethics. One is cultural heritage preservation; one is the celebration of Tuskegee University’s 140th anniversary; one exhibit deals with syphilis, specifically.
One exhibit, on Henrietta Lacks, who has a direct connection to Tuskegee and a direct connection to everyone in America, focuses on bioethics and informed consent.
The Legacy Museum dioramas have been used as an opportunity to educate students from HBCUs about art conservation and cultural heritage preservation in centers located in the northeast corridor of America. We have students from 11 member HBCUs with museums and galleries that spend a portion of their summers engaged in visual arts education and arts advocacy programs that address the marginalization of African Americans in art industries in the U.S. The purpose of these programs is to elevate the expectations of HBCU students and mentors, and partners at PWIs.
Macon County Health Department “Letters to Subjects
Some time ago you were given a thorough examination and since that time we hope that you have gotten a great deal of treatment for bad blood. You will now be given your last chance to get a second examination. This examination is a very special one and after it is finished you will be given a special treatment if its [sic] believed that you are in a condition to stand it. REMEMBER THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE FOR SPECIAL FREE TREATMENT. BE SURE TO MEET THE NURSE.”
Taliaferro Clark to R.A Vonderlehr Apr 8, 1933
“At the end of this project we shall have a considerable number of cases presenting various complications of syphilis, who have received only mercury and may still be considered untreated in the modern sense of therapy. Should these cases be followed over a period of from five to ten years many interesting facts could be learned regarding the course and complications of untreated syphilis”
R. A. Vonderlehr to Murray Smith July 27, 1933
“It is not my intention to let it be generally known that the main object of the present activities is the bringing of the men to necropsy”
O.C. Wenger to R.A Vonderlehr July 21, 1933
“As I see it, we have no further interest in these patients until they die [underlined]... “there is one danger in the latter plan and that is if the coloured population becomes aware that accepting free hospital care means a post-mortem, every darkey will leave Macon county and it will hurt [Dibble’s] hospital...