Tuskegee Veterans Administration Medical Center
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Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital
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| Location | Tuskegee, Alabama |
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| Coordinates | 32°26′43″N 85°42′47″W / 32.44528°N 85.71306°WCoordinates: 32°26′43″N 85°42′47″W / 32.44528°N 85.71306°W |
| Built | 1923 |
| NRHP Reference # | 12000140 |
| Added to NRHP | March 19, 2012 |
The Tuskegee Veterans Administration Medical Center began in 1923 as an old soldiers' home in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was originally called the Tuskegee Home, part of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers system.
The home-hospital, eventually 27 buildings, was developed next to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute campus (now Tuskegee University) on 464 acres (188 ha), with 300 acres of the property donated by the Institute.
Its medical purpose was to provide long-term care for the 300,000 African-American veterans in the segregated South from World War I; such care was often denied or neglected at other veterans' hospitals and old soldiers' homes. Medical care of veterans after the war was one of a number of issues complicated by race; the government was struggling to get veterans employed, to develop programs for those who were disabled, as well as to treat those needing medical treatment. Having served their country, veterans wanted the federal government to intercede as they tried to re-enter society.
In 1930 three agencies were combined as the Veterans Administration, and the hospital center was put under its authority. Since 1997 the hospital complex has been part of the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System; it is known as the East Campus of its four sites in Alabama and Georgia.
The home-hospital was developed to provide care for African-American veterans of World War I, who complained about difficulties in getting served in other facilities, particularly in the segregated South. Civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People lobbied the federal government on its responsibilities to care for such veterans in providing health as well as employment and retraining services. Plans were made to open the hospital April first with a full white staff of white doctors and white nurses with colored nurse-maids for each white nurse, in order to save them from contact with colored patients.
The hospital's early emphasis was to be on treating tuberculosis, and mental illness related to combat and shell shock, the two diseases most often diagnosed in veterans after the war. While whites had resisted giving care to African-American veterans, particularly in the South, once Congress had authorized the veterans hospital at Tuskegee, whites in the city and the state started maneuvering to control the medical jobs at the new facility.
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