Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty

by Thomas J. Ward, H. Jack Geiger (Foreword)

Out in the Rural is the unlikely story of the Tufts-Delta Health Center, which in 1966 opened in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, to become the first rural community health center in the United States. Its goal was to provide health care and outreach to the region's thousands of rural poor, most of them black sharecroppers who had lived without any medical resources for generations.

In Out in the Rural , historian Thomas J. Ward explores the health center's story alongside the remarkable life of its founder, Dr. H. Jack Geiger. A former teenage runaway, through a serendipitous turn of events he was befriended and taken in by the actor and Harlem Renaissance icon Canada Lee. Lee would later loan Geiger money for college, and after stints as a journalist and Merchant Marine, Geiger attended medical school and became a physician.

Geiger's personal history brings a profound human element to what was accomplished deep in the Mississippi Delta. In addition to providing medical care, the staff of the Tufts-Delta Health Center worked upstream to address the fundamental determinants of health-factors such as education, poverty, nutrition, and the environment-and ask the question, "What does it take to stay healthy?"

Equal parts social history and personal history, Out in the Rural is a story of both community health and of a stranger's kindness and determination to bring health care to areas out of reach.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

Published December 2, 2016

Reviews

[Cara Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although dry (with the ARC in desperate need of grammatical editing), it's a fascinating story of empowering the poor ...to fish for a lifetime, so to speak.

[Norma Nehren · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of learnings offered up in this history of the first community health center and the War on Poverty. It captured the dedication, idealism, and sacrifices of those involved. At the same time, the book reveals all of the challenges to social change efforts by bigotry, ignorance, and spite. It is a tale of what can be accomplished in a short 4-5 years and how quickly it can be destroyed. I personally enjoyed learning about the role Meharry, my alma mater, played in this story.

[Jules · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know... just fundamentally important policy text

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

thoughtful story on the building of the first health center, but quite dry. read in little bits.

[Karl Baumgartner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting read for the right reader. It's definitely not for everyone, but I think anyone interested in FQHCs/healthcare for underserved populations, health equity and justice, or the civil rights movement would find it interesting. One of the things that struck me the most about this book was the stories of the abject poverty in the rural South in the 1960s, which disproportionately affected black Americans. Reading about the sanitary conditions in most homes was shocking, as the '60s don't feel that long ago. Or about how many people heated their homes by using a 55 gallon steel drum as a stove in their homes. It's unbelievable how horrible living conditions were for many people at the time. All of that to say, this book beautifully demonstrated the importance of the social determinants of health, as the Tufts-Delta Health Center saw its greatest successes by focusing on improving sanitation, nutrition, and education (to name a few). Some of the lessons learned from this book were very valuable and well taken. On a different note, I didn't think the writing was particularly riveting/interesting; it read more like a book you would reference for a term paper than an interesting history book. I wouldn't recommend it as a pleasure read, but would as an educational history to learn from.