Disparities of Cherry Hospital - Asylum for the Colored Insane

Living in the southern states of America was difficult for Black Americans. Not only were we vulnerable to the burden of daily racism –  in the form of public lynching, violence, and the caste system known as Jim Crow – but the impact of the eugenics movement shifted the violence into medical legality on those placed in mental institutions. Between 1907 and 1940, more than 18,000 sterilizations of individuals deemed as "defective" took place in mental institutions, particularly in southern states. That was the norm for mental hospitals at the time, but nothing is more heart-wrenching than the story of Junis Wilson and his time at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, NC.

Junis Wilson had been a resident of Cherry Hospital from the tender age of 17. He was accused of rape in 1925 and because he only communicated in grunts and strange hand gestures, he was deemed insane by a judge and locked up at the Asylum for the Colored Insane. For decades, no one tried to understand him or learn to communicate with him in the only form of language that he could attempt.

The rape accusation was dropped in the 1970’s – it was a falsified allegation, as many of the time were, by a neighbor’s father who felt as though Wilson did not give the respect that commanded of him. But it wasn’t until 1991 that a social worker realized that Wilson was not mentally ill, he was simply deaf. The grunting and hand motions were a unique form of sign language that was taught to African-Americans of the South. What looked like the wild gesturing of a crazy person was merely Wilson trying to get other to understand that he was clearly of sound mind, and it was completely ignored.

In his 80’s, Wilson was released from the locked ward and given a settlement on the hospital grounds to live the rest of his life as a free man, but free in what sense? The justice system at the time stole everything from this child due to a disability and the color of his skin. Falsely accused, he was left to rot in deplorable conditions among “mentally unstable” (and I must be careful with that term since he was not the only falsely accused victim of the time) patients for seven decades. He was also retroactively castrated after the 1928 Supreme Court decision legalizing sterilization of people in institutions – he was admitted to the facility in 1925.

Although no one person is solely to blame for what happened to Junius Wilson, the conditions in which he spent his life were beyond irreparable. And he wasn’t the only one. The Cherry Hospital and its Separate but unequal stance on the care of mental patients echoed a long-standing tradition of the South; black people, even mentally sick black people, were worthless and should be treated as such. No matter the image that they try to paint of the facility, it will serve as one of this country’s longstanding injustices.

Upon beginning my research about Cherry Hospital, it was difficult to find any information about its past horrors. The facility remained on its original grounds up until 2016 and it was integrated in 1965. After desegregation occurred, the hospital took on an improved approach to the treatment of their patients, and the past transgressions seemed to disappear. But the more I digging I did, the more I found.

In 1877, the North Carolina legislature allocated $40,000 for the creation of the hospital. And 3 years later Cherry Hospital, originally known as the Asylum for the Colored Insane, opened its doors. The first 12 patients were transferred in from segregated quarters of the state asylum in Raleigh; by the end of the month, 60 patients had been admitted. By 1938, according to the Census, the facility’s population had grown to over 2500 with approximately 123 physicians and direct care staff – not nearly enough help to operate a hospital. That roughly worked out to one shift having 4-5 staff members left to care for around 140 patients a piece!

And honestly, how could that many people be mentally insane? I could imagine it. After dealing with the trauma of slavery and continued distress of Jim Crow laws, one might believe that African-Americans would be more apt to lose their minds, but that is not what is evident in records from the hospital’s earliest admittance.

“The definition of sanity in Negroes was still tied to behavior that a slave owner liked to see: a docile, hardworking laborer who paid him proper respect. Negroes who strayed too far from this behavioral norm were candidates for being declared insane and put away in asylums…” (Whitaker, 2002, p 171). That explains Wilson’s sad fate. Violence was also listed as a form of insanity in the earliest patients, but the cause of lunacy was usually listed as “unknown.” Regardless of diagnosis, all patients were given the same treatment.

Doris Artis, a nurse of 30 years at the hospital, noted that even in her childhood (she played on the grounds often because her parents worked at the hospital as well) most of the patients she had contact with were not psychotic or dangerous. She often wondered if they should have been in the facility.

Cherry Hospital was built on a farm and said farm was used to cultivate food for the residents of the facility. The 1884 annual report from the asylum's superintendent bragged about the productivity of what was then a 171-acre farm: "80 barrels corn, 6,000 pounds of fodders, 50 bushels of peas, and 3,000 pounds of oats. We now have 37 hogs for butchering and estimate their weight at 4,000 pounds. An accurate account of the vegetables has not been kept, and the value of our kitchen garden can hardly be estimated. The orchard gave us apples in abundance." (p. 16).

Guess who cultivated the land.

While horticultural therapy would now be considered a progressive form of treatment for mental illness, it's not clear how therapeutic it was for a population only recently removed from slavery. It was important to note that the farm did NOT grow cotton, many of the hospital staff were adamant on clarifying that fact, but African American patients were routinely leased to local white farmers to pick their cotton and other crops. Any kind of "wages" earned was given directly to the hospital.

One would imagine that with all the money being saved from patients cultivating their own food and the income from renting their bodies for indentured services, the hospital would have the extra funds to upkeep the grounds and provide a bearable life for the patients - maybe even including therapeutic services that would not invoke the earliest symptoms of PTSD. This was not the case.

In 1957-1958 the state spent a whopping $866 per patient at Cherry Hospital, while per capita expenditures at all white mental institutes ranged from $1,477 - $1,844 (Jackson, 2001, p. 17). The superintendent saw no need to do anything about it, lest resources would be diverted from the white asylums of the state: "It is not... recommended here that steps should be taken for enlarging [the facility grounds]. The State, at present, has a large burden in providing for the white insane."

The extra funds might not have made a big difference, but it could've helped the truly manic patients. Instead, they were subjected to horrific treatments, like being placed outside in large iron cages with corn shucks to absorb their bodily waste. When they had calmed down or become too exhausted to resist they were retrieved and brought back into the ward - this form of therapy was not abandoned until 1956. Another form of treatment was electroshock therapy, a practice that was typically used as a threat in many hospitals and cause severe memory problem when performed incorrectly. "We were trained to give shots to patients and do consultative work," explained Robert Kornegey, a staff member of 38 years. "Now, nurses are licensed to do that and social workers do that" (Jackson, 2001, p. 19). Since most of the care staff at the hospital were not medically trained, one can only imagine the irrevocable damage done unintentionally.

Even the employees were subjected to unfair treatment and forms of favoritism in the hospital. Artis described the racial segregation of staff within the facility noting that the more desirable positions in maintenance and administration were reserved for the white staff, leaving the black staff to assist with distressing treatments like electroconvulsive therapies. And furthermore, African American staff members were required to stand at attention when a white person entered the ward - how could the staff choose not to question these oppressive practices?

Real improvement in the care of patients did not occur until the integration and the transfer of white patients into the facility in 1965. More and better-trained staff were hired, maintenance improved, and new facilities were added.

For the first 85 years, Cherry Hospital served the entire African American population of North Carolina, which was as impressive as it was sad. A museum is now in the place of one of the main buildings and the farm is still cultivated yearly. They say that there are ghosts that wander the grounds - the cemetery is filled with graves, many of them marked with patient numbers rather than names. If I spent my life falsely accused of a mental illness wan was buried without any consideration to my name, I would haunt those grounds too.

Jackson, V. (2001). Separate and unequal: The legacy of racially segregated psychiatric hospital – a cultural competence training tool. Retrieved from https://www.patdeegan.com/sites/default/files/files/separate_and_unequal.pdf.

Whitaker, Robert. Mad in American: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Press, 2002.