1931-1935
Day 11 1931: Two Black Women Die After Segregated Hospital Refuses Care On November 7, 1931, Dean Juliette Derricotte of Fisk University in Nashville was driving three students to her parents’ home in Atlanta when a Model T driven by an older white man suddenly swerved and struck Ms. Derricotte’s car, overturning it into a ditch. The white driver stopped to yell at the black occupants of Ms. Derricotte’s car for damaging his own vehicle, then left the scene without rendering any aid. When others tried to get care for the injured black riders, nearby Hamilton Memorial Hospital in Dalton, Georgia -- a segregated facility -- refused to admit African American patients. Instead, Ms. Derricotte and the three students were treated by a white doctor at his office in Dalton. Though Ms. Derricotte and one of the students, Nina Johnson, were critically injured, they were afterward left to recuperate in the home of a local African American woman. Six hours after the accident, one of the less...