The Black Physician in African American Fiction (1890s-1930s) : Performing a White Profession in a Racist Country

Abstract

My thesis explores the figure of the black physician in a series of African American literary works published between the 1890s and the early 1930s, a period marked by the rise of a middle-class profession among African Americans, but also by the consolidation of racism and segregation in the United States. The literary works I have selected all focus on the contradiction embodied by the black physician: by mastering a prestigious, ‘white’ form of knowledge which justified the biological inferiority of black people, this character was the very evidence of the pseudoscientific nature of racist assumptions. My dissertation is divided into five chapters. In the first two chapters, I offer an analysis of the socio-historical context that saw the birth of the black medical professional, with a focus on the influence that Booker T. Washington’s and W.E.B Du Bois’ theories of education and social uplift had on aspiring black doctors. Chapter three investigates the uses of the character of the black physician in African American late 19 th - and early 20 th - century fiction. In chapters four and five, I analyze two different sets of novels: those in which this figure is portrayed as an ideal leader for his community, and those in which he is depicted as a victim that reveals the brutality of the country’s racism and oppression.