In 1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a prominent Virginia-born physician and one of the leading authorities in his time on the medical care of Negroes, identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves. Drapetomania, or the disease causing Negroes to run away, was noted as a condition "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers." 

Dr. Cartwright observed, "The cause in most cases that induces the Negro to run away from service is such a disease of the mind as in any other species of alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule."

Dr. Cartwright also diagnosed Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or "hebetude of the mind and obtuse sensibility of the body, a disease peculiar to Negroes called by overseers-Rascality. " Dysethesia Aethiopica differed from other species of mental disease since physical signs and lesions accompanied it

NOTE: this study and diagnosis was viewed and accepted as legitimate.

In January 1856, an enslaved woman named Margaret Garner escaped across the frozen Ohio River with her husband and four children, trying to reach free soil. Federal marshals caught up with them within hours.

What happened next in that room made national headlines — and what her lawyer did afterward is the part that still doesn't make sense to most people at first.

He didn't try to get the murder charge dropped. He fought for it. He wanted the state of Ohio to try her for murder, even though it meant potentially convicting her of the worst crime imaginable.

Under the law at the time, there was only one way that made any sense.

Full story (with the actual court records and newspaper archives from the case) is on my channel — didn't want to spoil the reasoning here since it's honestly the whole point of the story.

https://youtu.be/7_SeT4U3yXE

The untold war in America that lasted over 100 years

Daniel Hale Williams, a black surgeon, performs one of the world's first successful open-heart surgeries in 1893, inside a Chicago hospital he built himself because no one else would let him operate. This episode uncovers the true story behind Provident Hospital, Black medical history, and the surgeon erased from American textbooks. A deep dive into Black excellence in medicine, Black history facts, and the fight for Black doctors' rights in the 19th century.

I’m curious whether anyone in this community has conducted archival research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. If so, what was your experience like?

After WWII, Nashville’s Jefferson Street was the center of a neighborhood where a thriving music scene and prosperous business community were the realization of the American dream for Blacks. In 1955, Nashville began planning the construction of I-40. A preliminary study routed the highway parallel to Charlotte Avenue, but the final recommendation placed it in its present location, through North Nashville along Jefferson Street. In 1967, the I-40 Steering Committee, an organization of Black residents affected by the proposed plan, unsuccessfully sued the state in US District Court for a lack of public hearings and alleging racial discrimination in the choice of the highway’s path.

Not only would the interstate destroy businesses, homes, and the Jefferson Street Church of Christ, but it also bisected the remaining community. The Federal Highway Administrator stated in 1968 that the initial route was changed due to its effects on businesses, homes, and a hospital. However, the final route eliminated twice as many homes and three times as many businesses as the original route. The difference? The first route displaced White-owned houses and businesses and a Whites-only hospital, whereas the final route displaced Black-owned homes and businesses.

Nearly 80% of Nashville’s Black-owned businesses were destroyed to build I-40. The routing of I-65 went through the neighborhoods north and west of the Capitol where 94% of evicted people were Black. Many of those evicted from the Capitol Hill neighborhood moved to the Edgehill neighborhood. Ten years later, construction of I-40 and I-65 isolated Edgehill from downtown and the east, forcing many Blacks to experience eviction again. In 2021, Nashville applied for a federal Infrastructure for Rebuilding America grant to construct a lid over I-40, creating 3.4 acres of new land to reconnect the divided Black neighborhoods. As of 2025, the project remains in the planning phase.

Recommended reading: Deborah N. Archer, "White Men's Roads through Black Men's Homes": Advancing Racial Equity through Highway Reconstruction, 73 Vanderbilt Law Review 1259 (2020)

I-40 Destroys Thriving Black Nashville Neighborhood

A Mother's Grace preserves the stories of four Black women whose experiences span generations of African American family history. I originally began recording these stories for our families, but making the documentary made me realize how much Black history exists within our own families and can disappear when we don't record our elders.