Racial discrimination at Raleigh area hospitals
Wake Medical Center was a leader in racial integration, Daniels remembers. Rex Hospital, while it did not have racially discriminatory policies, excluded blacks by custom.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Frank Daniels Jr., September 11, 2002. Interview R-0320. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- KATHLEEN KEARNS:
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Again thinking about the community as a whole, looking back over the last forty-plus years, how would you describe
Wake's role in integrating health care in Raleigh?
- FRANK DANIELS, JR.:
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You mean racially?
- KATHLEEN KEARNS:
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Racially.
- FRANK DANIELS, JR.:
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Oh, they did it. Wake did it. Rex didn't do it. Rex followed
later. I don't think Rex ever had any policy against treating
blacks. They just didn't do it much. And they
weren't made to feel welcome. But the people who lived over
on Oberlin Road, which was a black community, I don't know
when they started going to Rex, but I know they went there. But I
don't know that they felt comfortable there. But Wake led
that issue.
- KATHLEEN KEARNS:
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Did that start to change at Rex with Medicaid and Medicare in the
mid-1960s?
- FRANK DANIELS, JR.:
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Probably, probably. That would be my guess. I don't really
know.
- KATHLEEN KEARNS:
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Are both hospitals equally integrated now?
- FRANK DANIELS, JR.:
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I don't know. I would guess that there are more blacks at
Wake than there are at Rex, but I don't really know that. One
thing is the locality would make a difference.
