“Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present” is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation, abuse and neglect of African Americans. The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It begins with the earliest encounters of blacks and the medical establishment during slavery, looks at how eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify medical experiments conducted by the government and the military “and offers new details about the infamous Tuskegee Experiments that began in the 1930s.

“Medical Apartheid” also examines less well-known abuses and looks at unethical practices and mistreatment of blacks that are still taking place in the medical establishment today.

listen to an interview with Harriet Washington with Democracy Now!

Also acknowledged was Edwidge Danticat who won in the autobiography category for “Brother, I’m Dying”.

Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning Haitian-born writer who now lives in Miami. In November 2004, Danticat’s 81-year-old uncle, Reverend Joseph Dantica, died in the custody of immigration officials. He had arrived from Haiti seeking political asyslum following threats on his life. Denied his medicines and accused of faking an illness, he died just days after his detention. Edwidge Danticat tells this devastating story in her latest book,“Brother, I’m Dying”

listen to her interview here