Antonia Hylton

A Harrowing Account of the Overlap of Two Forgotten Groups in American History

Journalist Antonia Hylton weaves together first-hand accounts and oral history (including her family's and her own) and what documentary evidence is available to tell the story of Crownsville Hospital - originally Maryland's Hospital for the Negro Insane - in Anne Arundel County from its opening in 1911 through its integration in the decades after World War II until its eventual closure for lack of funding in 2004, and what has happened since with the grounds and some of the final patients. I have a special personal interest in the history of American mental institutions due to my grandmother, who was institutionalized in the early 1950s in deplorable conditions. My grandmother was a White woman living in Indiana. Until I read Hilton's book, I could only imagine how much worse it could have been if she were Black and living south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Hilton's case study of American mental health treatment touches on the insanity of daily life first under slavery and then Jim Crow, and the impacts of institutional racism and lack of adequate mental health care on America's modern economic disparities, gun violence and incarceration rates. As a laser-focused stand-alone, it is compelling, but it leaves the reader wishing it could be the companion piece to a documentary film, or better yet, the launching point for a more comprehensive history.… (meer)

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum grabbed me from the synopsis to the last page of the book. It tells the heartbreaking story of Black men, women and children who were exploited and intentionally abused, all for the sake of gaining free labor, starting with the 12 Black men who cleared the land and built it under the supervision of a doctor. Once done, they became the first “patients” at the very institution they helped to create. The patient population grew by leaps and bounds, and there was shockingly little to no care given to them; the majority barely had a bed to sleep in, food to eat, clothes to wear. I was beyond saddened and angry to see that they basically devised a way to “rent” out the “patients” to other businesses, giving them absolutely none of the so-called help they claimed they needed. There were parts of this book that tore at my emotions, had me crying for those who suffered unbearably. This is the must-read book of the year; it’s written with such flowing description it almost makes you feel as if you’re right there.… (meer)