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Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry and Civil Rights in the American South
342 pages, Paperback
Published January 13, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 1, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and University of North Carolina Press for an eARC copy of Jim Crow in the Asylum.
I was really excited after reading the description as I have an odd love of 19th and 20th century psychiatric hospitals. Sadly, there are not always a lot of information on them as they are either lost or not told. Even more so when it comes to asylums/hospitals that are specifically built for minority populations. I honestly can't wait to get my hands onto the physical copy!
Jim Crow in the Asylum by Kylie M. Smith is a meticulously researched and deeply unsettling examination of how racism shaped psychiatric care for African Americans in the Deep South. Focusing on Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the history of mental health institutions which served not only as a places of treatment, but also as instruments of social control - reinforcing oppressive racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow era.
There is a wonderful combination of archival research, interviews, and policy analysis that brings to life the experiences of the Black patients and staff who navigated the institutions. Their stories revealing a complex negotiation between systemic racism, community expectations, and deeply personal understandings of mental illness and healing. Smith's work continues to bring to light how these intitutuions perpetuated patterns of abuse, neglect, and racial discrimination that haped long-standing disparities in mental health outcomes.
This book is certainly both a historical expose and a contemporary warning. Reveals how the legacy of Jim Crow persists in modern health and carceral systems, urging readers to confront the uncomfortable truth: for many Black Southerners, having a mental illness has long been treated as a crime.
I was really excited after reading the description as I have an odd love of 19th and 20th century psychiatric hospitals. Sadly, there are not always a lot of information on them as they are either lost or not told. Even more so when it comes to asylums/hospitals that are specifically built for minority populations. I honestly can't wait to get my hands onto the physical copy!
Jim Crow in the Asylum by Kylie M. Smith is a meticulously researched and deeply unsettling examination of how racism shaped psychiatric care for African Americans in the Deep South. Focusing on Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the history of mental health institutions which served not only as a places of treatment, but also as instruments of social control - reinforcing oppressive racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow era.
There is a wonderful combination of archival research, interviews, and policy analysis that brings to life the experiences of the Black patients and staff who navigated the institutions. Their stories revealing a complex negotiation between systemic racism, community expectations, and deeply personal understandings of mental illness and healing. Smith's work continues to bring to light how these intitutuions perpetuated patterns of abuse, neglect, and racial discrimination that haped long-standing disparities in mental health outcomes.
This book is certainly both a historical expose and a contemporary warning. Reveals how the legacy of Jim Crow persists in modern health and carceral systems, urging readers to confront the uncomfortable truth: for many Black Southerners, having a mental illness has long been treated as a crime.
January 14, 2026
I completed my Masters degree in Sociology, with a focus in mass incarceration. One of my all-time favorite books is The New Jim Crow, so this one immediately stuck out to me. The legacy of the Jim Crow era is long reaching, and reading more in-depth about the impact it had on mental health and treatment was eye-opening. The legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one that many are familiar with, but this book looks at the lesser talked about impact of segregation and white supremacy on mental health and treatment.
The idea that blackness equated to a pre-disposition to mental illness was debunked many times, but the benefit of this belief to white supremacy out weighed that. White medical professionals and politicians in the South wanted to uphold segregation, thus perpetuating Jim Crow era segregation, but more importantly - Jim Crow era culture. The desire to keep white Americans firmly above that of any minority, but specifically black Americans, was their main goal.
This book does a great job of connecting the pipeline between attitudes around mental illness in the African American community, and the desire to connect that to criminality. Mental illness and deviance have long been linked, but are rarely talked about or recognized as being so interconnected and falsely attributed to blackness. The legacy and reverberation of Jim Crow in the United States is very much alive today, as seen by the percentage of black Americans who are incarcerated, of infant and mother mortality rates amongst black women, and especially in the way in which lawmakers propose and pass legislation surrounding Medicaid and government assistance.
Thank you to UNC Press and Netgalley for this arc!
The idea that blackness equated to a pre-disposition to mental illness was debunked many times, but the benefit of this belief to white supremacy out weighed that. White medical professionals and politicians in the South wanted to uphold segregation, thus perpetuating Jim Crow era segregation, but more importantly - Jim Crow era culture. The desire to keep white Americans firmly above that of any minority, but specifically black Americans, was their main goal.
This book does a great job of connecting the pipeline between attitudes around mental illness in the African American community, and the desire to connect that to criminality. Mental illness and deviance have long been linked, but are rarely talked about or recognized as being so interconnected and falsely attributed to blackness. The legacy and reverberation of Jim Crow in the United States is very much alive today, as seen by the percentage of black Americans who are incarcerated, of infant and mother mortality rates amongst black women, and especially in the way in which lawmakers propose and pass legislation surrounding Medicaid and government assistance.
Thank you to UNC Press and Netgalley for this arc!
March 13, 2026
One of the most influential books I’ve read about systemic racism is The New Jim Crow, so Jim Crow in the Asylum immediately caught my attention. The long shadow of segregation reaches into nearly every American institution but Kylie M. Smith’s work highlights a space that many people rarely consider: the history of psychiatric care. While events like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study are widely recognized as examples of racialized medical abuse, this book reveals how deeply segregation and white supremacy shaped mental health institutions themselves.
Smith examines how Southern asylums were structured around the logic of Jim Crow, not just socially but also medically. Black patients were segregated, systematically underfunded, and often subjected to poorer conditions and inferior treatment. At the same time, white physicians and policymakers frequently framed Blackness itself as evidence of psychological pathology. Even when researchers disproved claims that Black Americans were inherently predisposed to mental illness, those findings were largely ignored because the myth served a broader political purpose: reinforcing racial hierarchy and justifying segregation.
What makes this book especially compelling is how it traces the relationship between race, mental illness, and criminality. The idea that deviance and mental instability were somehow inherent to Blackness helped legitimize discriminatory policing, incarceration, and institutionalization. Smith demonstrates that psychiatric discourse often mirrored (and reinforced) the same ideologies that sustained Jim Crow across education, housing, and law.
Ultimately, Jim Crow in the Asylum is a sobering reminder that the legacy of segregation is not confined to the past. The structures and assumptions built during the Jim Crow era continue to shape how mental illness is perceived, diagnosed, and treated today. For readers interested in the intersection of race, medicine, and social policy, this book offers an important and eye-opening perspective on a largely overlooked part of American history.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Smith examines how Southern asylums were structured around the logic of Jim Crow, not just socially but also medically. Black patients were segregated, systematically underfunded, and often subjected to poorer conditions and inferior treatment. At the same time, white physicians and policymakers frequently framed Blackness itself as evidence of psychological pathology. Even when researchers disproved claims that Black Americans were inherently predisposed to mental illness, those findings were largely ignored because the myth served a broader political purpose: reinforcing racial hierarchy and justifying segregation.
What makes this book especially compelling is how it traces the relationship between race, mental illness, and criminality. The idea that deviance and mental instability were somehow inherent to Blackness helped legitimize discriminatory policing, incarceration, and institutionalization. Smith demonstrates that psychiatric discourse often mirrored (and reinforced) the same ideologies that sustained Jim Crow across education, housing, and law.
Ultimately, Jim Crow in the Asylum is a sobering reminder that the legacy of segregation is not confined to the past. The structures and assumptions built during the Jim Crow era continue to shape how mental illness is perceived, diagnosed, and treated today. For readers interested in the intersection of race, medicine, and social policy, this book offers an important and eye-opening perspective on a largely overlooked part of American history.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
This was... a very tough read that took me way longer than I expected it would. There was a lot of information, meticuliusly researched, triangulated with other sources as well as with what none of the sources would explicitly mention, giving a very good picture of how Jim Crow featured in mental health treatment in the American South. Smith did a very good job with this, from what I can tell, and went very thoroughly into everything she was able to find, while acknowledging where she was not able to find anything due to the lack of sources, and letting that lack of sources speak for itself. What isn't said can be just as important as what is said.
A very informative and important read, but definitely NOT a quick or easy one.
This was... a very tough read that took me way longer than I expected it would. There was a lot of information, meticuliusly researched, triangulated with other sources as well as with what none of the sources would explicitly mention, giving a very good picture of how Jim Crow featured in mental health treatment in the American South. Smith did a very good job with this, from what I can tell, and went very thoroughly into everything she was able to find, while acknowledging where she was not able to find anything due to the lack of sources, and letting that lack of sources speak for itself. What isn't said can be just as important as what is said.
A very informative and important read, but definitely NOT a quick or easy one.
April 12, 2026
5⭐️
Am very interested in mental illness given my own experiences as a white woman, so this was very insightful and extremely well researched
Am very interested in mental illness given my own experiences as a white woman, so this was very insightful and extremely well researched
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews