Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Out in the Rural
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://tjward98.wixsite.com/tjward98
CITY: Spanish Fort
STATE: AL
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://departments2.shc.edu/history/people/dr-thomas-ward * https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-J.-Ward-Jr./e/B01N7BWJ29 * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/out-in-the-rural-9780190624620?cc=us&lang=en&#
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2003005446
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2003005446
HEADING: Ward, Thomas J., Jr., 1969-
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035 __ |a (OCoLC)oca06079085
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |e rda |d DNLM
046 __ |f 1969-02-19 |2 edtf
100 1_ |a Ward, Thomas J., |c Jr., |d 1969-
370 __ |f Mobile (Ala.) |2 naf
373 __ |a Spring Hill College |2 naf
400 1_ |w nnea |a Ward, Thomas J., |d 1969-
670 __ |a Ward, Thomas J. Black physicians in the Jim Crow South, 2003: |b Ecip t.p. (Thomas J. Ward) ECIP data (Thomas J. Ward, Jr.; d.o.b.: 2-19-1969) book t.p. (Thomas J. Ward, Jr.)
670 __ |a Out in the rural, 2016: |b ECIP title page (Thomas J. Ward Jr.) ECIP data view (chair of the History Department at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala)
953 __ |a jc14
PERSONAL
Born February 19, 1969; married; children: three sons.
EDUCATION:Hampden-Sydney College, B.A., 1991; Clemson University, M.A., 1993; University of Southern Mississippi, Ph.D., 1999.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL, professor, chair of history department.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to publications, including the Journal of Military History, New York Times, Army History, Journal of Mississippi History, and Gulf South Historical Review.
SIDELIGHTS
Thomas J. Ward is a writer and educator based in Spanish Fort, AL. He is a professor at Spring Hill College. Ward also serves as the chair of the college’s history department. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Hampden-Sydney College, a master’s degree from Clemson University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Mississippi. Ward is the author of the 2010 book, Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South.
In 2016, Ward released Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty. In this volume, he profiles the Tufts-Delta Health Center, a health clinic in rural Mississippi that provided care to residents in an innovative way. The Delta region in Mississippi was experiencing devastating poverty when the clinic opened in 1967. Members of both the black and white communities in the area were suffering from malnutrition, tainted drinking water, and lack of healthcare for mothers and children. The Tufts-Delta Health Center determined to address these concerns. Ward highlights the differences between the center and other medical care facilities that were in existence at the time. He profiles the founders of the institution, L.C. Dorsey, Andrew James, John Hatch, and H. Jack Geiger. Dorsey was a farm expert, James was responsible for environmental services in the area, and Hatch was a community organizer. Ward devotes a significant portion of the book to discussing the legacy of Geiger. He has come to be known as a pioneer in community health. After the success of the Tufts-Delta Health Center, over 1,200 other community health centers opened throughout the country.
Critics offered favorable assessments of Out in the Rural. A Publishers Weekly reviewer described the volume as a “densely-packed chronicle” whose “story is as urgent today as it was a half century ago.” In an article on the Newswise website, Feygele Jacobs is quoted as stating: “Out In the Rural is an important contribution to the social and political history of community health centers. … In documenting how health centers got started, it provides a clear-eyed and inspiring look at the power of passionate individuals to change the face of health and health care in America.” Catherine Hudson, contributor to the Rural Health Quarterly website, suggested: “The book includes many compelling photos, but perhaps the most telling of the times is the one selected for the cover. It provides a haunting glimpse into the living conditions and the plight of the people who were all but invisible.” Hudson concluded: “Out in the Rural is a must read for health professionals and history buffs alike.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, October 17, 2016, review of Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty, p. 61.
ONLINE
Newswise, http://www.newswise.com/ (November 16, 2016), review of Out in the Rural.
Rural Health Quarterly Online, http://ruralhealthquarterly.com/ (May 11, 2017), Catherine Hudson, review of Out in the Rural.
Spring Hill College Website, http://departments2.shc.edu/ (July 25, 2017), author faculty profile.*
Dr. Thomas J. Ward
Professor
Department Chair
Quinlan Hall 312
p: 251-380-3060
email
Personal Website
Amazon Author Page
Ph.D, American History, University of Southern Mississippi, 1999.
MA, American History, Clemson University, 1993.
BA, History and Political Science, Hampden-Sydney College, 1991.
Dr. Ward teaches a variety of courses in U.S. History, African-American History, and Western Civilization. He is the author of Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty and Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South and has written a number of articles on African Americans and health care history. He is currently working on a history of African-American prisoners of war.
Publications
Books
Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty. Oxford University Press, 2016. Foreword by H. Jack Geiger.
Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South. The University of Arkansas Press, 2010.
Articles
“Detachment Number One: Black POWs at Camp #5, North Korea,” Journal of Military History (under review).
“The Plight of the Black P.O.W.” New York Times Disunion series, August 27, 2013.
“Justice Delayed is Justice Denied.” Spring Hill College Magazine (Summer 2013).
“Enemy Combatants: Black Soldiers in Confederate Prisons,” Army History (Winter 2010).
“Medical Missionaries of the Delta: Dr. Dorothy Ferebee and the Mississippi Health Project, 1935-1941,” Journal of Mississippi History 63 (Fall 2001) 3: 189-203.
“Class Conflict in Black New Orleans: Rivers Frederick, Ernest Wright and the Insurance Strike of 1940,” Gulf South Historical Review 15 (Fall 1999): 35-48.
“African American Physicians in Jim Crow New Orleans,” Proceedings of the 1998 National Association of African American Studies (Morehead, Kentucky: 1999).
“The Campaign Against Pellagra in Upstate South Carolina,” The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association (Columbia, South Carolina: 1994): 15-24.
Book Reviews
Review of Gretchen Long, Doctoring Freedom: The Politics of African American Medical Care in Slavery and Emancipation (University of North Carolina Press, 2012), for the Journal of Mississippi History (forthcoming).
Review of Alondra Nelson, Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), for the Journal of Medicine and Allied Sciences (July 2013).
Review of William W. McLendon, Floyd W. Denny, Jr., and William B. Blythe, Bettering the Health of the People: W. Reese Berryhill, the UNC School of Medicine, and the North Carolina Good Health Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), for the Journal of Southern History (February 2010).
Review of Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, (Doubleday, 2006), for the National Catholic Reporter (Aug. 17, 2007).
Review of William Wells Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion: His Heroism and His Fidelity (1867; new edition, Ohio University Press, 2003), for H-Civil War (June, 2005).
Review of Steven M. Stowe, Doctoring the South: Southern Physicians and Everyday Medicine in the Mid-Nineteenth Century South (University of North Carolina Press, 2003), for The Georgia Historical Quarterly vol. 89, Summer 2005.
Spring Hill Courses
The Making of Modern America
U.S.: World Wars and Great Depression
U.S. Since 1945
The South
African American History
Women in American History
Vietnam War
Honors History
U.S. Since 1876
Western Civilization
*****
Office: 312 Quinlan Hall
Phone: 251.380.3060
E-mail: tward@shc.edu
QUOTED: "densely-packed chronicle" "story is as urgent today as it was a half
century ago."
Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War
on Poverty
Publishers Weekly.
263.42 (Oct. 17, 2016): p61.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty
Thomas J. Ward, Jr. Oxford Univ., $34.95 (224p) ISBN 978-0-19-062462-0
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Ward (Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South), chair of the history department at Spring Hill College (Ala.), celebrates the nation's first rural
community health center and its groundbreaking mission to provide medical care and be "an instrument of social change" in the impoverished
Mississippi Delta region. In this densely packed chronicle, Ward covers the growth of the Tufts-Delta Health Center from a small health clinic in
1967--opening amid skepticism from both black and white communities--to its unique role as a medical center and organizer of programs
addressing rampant malnutrition, poor maternal and child healthcare, unsafe drinking water and sewage disposal, and hunger. Woven throughout
are vivid portraits of the clinic's founders, including H. Jack Geiger, the "father of community health"; community organizer John Hatch;
environmental services director Andrew James; and farm expert L.C. Dorsey. Ward argues that the center's true measure of success is its enduring
legacy as one of the first of "more than 1,200 community health centers in the U.S." Ward shows that "in both practical and symbolic terms, the
Tufts-Delta Health Center was a radical assault on both the medical and social status quo"--and that story is as urgent today as it was a half
century ago. (Dec.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
7/9/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1499654699452 2/2
"Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty." Publishers Weekly, 17 Oct. 2016, p. 61. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468700060&it=r&asid=f6782c7e4a93ec87359bd77b1b7a5442. Accessed 9 July
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468700060
QUOTED: "Out In the Rural is an important contribution to the social and political history of community health centers. ... In documenting how health centers got started, it provides a clear-eyed and inspiring look at the power of passionate individuals to change the face of health and health care in America."
Newswise — New York – The remarkable individuals who founded the first rural community health center in Bolivar County, Mississippi more than 50 years ago led “a radical assault on both the medical and the social status quo,” writes Thomas J. Ward Jr. in his new book, Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty, published by Oxford University Press. The story is as “urgent today as it was a half century ago,” according to Publisher’s Weekly.
“The Mississippi experiment tested a bold hypothesis – that health centers could serve as important instruments of social change. Fifty years later, the fruits of that experiment endure,” said Dr. H. Jack Geiger, the World War II merchant marine officer turned physician, educator and civil rights activist profiled in Ward’s new book. Along with pioneering activists Dr. John W. Hatch, L.C. Dorsey, Andrew B. James and others, Geiger co-founded the health center in Mound Bayou to serve a target population in the northern third of Bolivar County, in the Mississippi Delta region, one of the poorest populations in the nation. Now known as the Delta Health Center, it was one of the nation’s first two community health centers, and sister to the urban Tufts-Columbia Point Health Center founded by Geiger and his colleague, Dr. Count D. Gibson, at a public housing project in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.
“In telling a story that started fifty years ago, Out in The Rural has enormous relevance for public health and health policy today,” said Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, Dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Policy. “We are thrilled that Professor Ward and Dr. Geiger will help bring this vital part of American social and medical history to life and are honored to host the book’s launch celebration.”
Author Thomas J. Ward Jr., Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, will read from the book at a publication launch event today. Following the reading, an expert panel will discuss the importance of the Mound Bayou experience and its implications for health care practice and policy.
Panelists include:
• Dr. H. Jack Geiger, Project Director of the Tufts-Delta Health Center; • Dr. Warria A. Esmond, Medical Director, Settlement Health; • Daniel R. Hawkins, Senior Vice President of Public Policy and Research at the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC); and, • Dr. M. Monica Sweeney, Vice Dean for Global Engagement, Clinical Professor, and Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
“Out In the Rural is an important contribution to the social and political history of community health centers,” said Feygele Jacobs, President and CEO of the RCHN Community Health Foundation. “In documenting how health centers got started, it provides a clear-eyed and inspiring look at the power of passionate individuals to change the face of health and health care in America.”
“Today’s American community health center movement, which provides a health care home to more than 25 million people at nearly 10,000 urban and rural sites, stands on the shoulders of those pioneers who built the first rural center at Mound Bayou, and continues to build on that groundbreaking model,” said Hawkins.
RCHN Community Health Foundation provided grant support for the project in conjunction with other funders and is a co-sponsor of the launch event along with the National Association of Community Health Centers. The event is also sponsored by the Geiger Gibson Program at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, which helped support the research on which the book is based. Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty is available from Oxford University Press.
Reporters interested in attending the event or interviewing Drs. Ward or Geiger may contact Susan Lamontagne at susan@publicinterestmedia.com or 917.568.0969.
The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy promotes health and social justice and provides a collaborative and accessible environment for excellence in education, research, and service in public health, to promote and sustain healthier populations and to shape policy and practice in public health. www.sph.cuny.edu.
The Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health Policy is a special initiative of Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. Named after Drs. H. Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, pioneers in community health practice and tireless advocates for civil and human rights, the program aims to develop the next generation of community health leaders. For more information click here.
The RCHN Community Health Foundation is a not-for-profit foundation established to support community health centers through strategic investment, outreach, education, and cutting-edge health policy research. www.rchnfoundation.org and www.chcchronicles.org
Founded in 1971, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) is a non-profit representing the nation’s network of more than 1,400 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), which expand healthcare access by serving more than 25 million people through nearly 10,000 sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. www.nachc.org
QUOTED: "The book includes many compelling photos, but perhaps the most telling of the times is the one selected for the cover. It provides a haunting glimpse into the living conditions and the plight of the people who were all but invisible."
"Out in the Rural is a must read for health professionals and history buffs alike."
Catherine Hudson
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
~ Robert F. Kennedy
“Out in the Rural: A Mississippi Health Center and Its War on Poverty” is a historical account of the birth of the nation’s community health care program and gives readers a proper introduction to Dr. H. Jack Geiger, founder of the Tufts-Delta Health Center in rural Mississippi.
It is a story one man’s vision of health care and how it led to the opening of the first rural community health center (CHC) in America. Set during the civil rights movement, author Thomas J. Ward Jr. takes a look back in time to when America was not so great. A time in America’s history when separate and unequal treatment was the norm. A time when the poorest among us were those who for generations had provided free labor to this country’s economy. A time when many African-Americans in the south had lived beyond their usefulness on farms and plantations and were victims of their circumstances.
The book includes many compelling photos, but perhaps the most telling of the times is the one selected for the cover. It provides a haunting glimpse into the living conditions and the plight of the people who were all but invisible.
Dr. Geiger saw health and human rights as inseparable, stemming from his experiences as a visiting medical student in South Africa in the 1950s. He used this knowledge to bring health care to impoverished people in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. In Dr. Geiger’s mind, the concept of community health was a merger of public health and clinical medicine, teaching the people how to take a more active role in their own health.
War was indeed waged on poverty through this Mississippi Health Center via the approach taken to improve the quality of life of the many sharecroppers in the region. The health center was not only concerned about the health of the people, but it was a launching pad for economic development.
The center utilized health services as the route of entry to social change and addressed issues such as environmental (living) conditions, nutrition, economic attainment and self-sufficiency. Not quite a rags-to-riches story, but Out in the Rural chronicles the development of how a cooperative was formed which empowered the people by giving them the opportunity to earn a living for themselves by teaching them new skills or showing them how to utilize the ones they already possessed.
There are now over 9,000 CHC’s in America and it is amazing to think it all started with this one. Out in the Rural is a must read for health professionals and history buffs alike.
Thomas J. Ward is the chair of the History Department at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama. He is the author of numerous works on both African-American history and the history of health care, including his first book, Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South. He lives in Spanish Fort, Alabama with his wife and three sons.