For most of the first half of the twentieth century, tuberculosis ranked among the top three causes of mortality
among urban African Americans. Often afflicting an entire family or large segments of a neighborhood, the plague
of TB was as mysterious as it was fatal. Samuel Kelton Roberts Jr. examines how individuals and institutions�black
and white, public and private�responded to the challenges of tuberculosis in a segregated society.
Reactionary white politicians and health officials promoted "racial hygiene" and sought to control TB
through Jim Crow quarantines, Roberts explains. African Americans, in turn, protested the segregated, overcrowded
housing that was the true root of the tuberculosis problem. Moderate white and black political leadership reconfigured
definitions of health and citizenship, extending some rights while constraining others. Meanwhile, those who suffered
with the disease�as its victims or as family and neighbors�made the daily adjustments required by the devastating
effects of the "white plague."
Exploring the politics of race, reform, and public health, Infectious Fearuses the tuberculosis crisis to illuminate
the limits of racialized medicine and the roots of modern health disparities. Ultimately, it reveals a disturbing
picture of the United States' health history while offering a vision of a more democratic future.