Introduction

Before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, Black and Brown people, who comprise the global majority, experienced health disparities in their communities. The saying ‘when white folks catch a cold, Black folks get pneumonia’ is an apt gibe about the healthcare system efficacy in the US. Black communities absorbed the greatest blows from the pandemic due to their existing health challenges, disproportionate representation in the essential industries, pandemic communication gaps, and socioeconomic disparities (Tai et al, 2021: 705– 706).

A Pew Research study found that, compared with Hispanic, white and Asian Americans, only 42 per cent of Blacks planned to get the COVID-19 vaccine (Funk and Tyson, 2020).Though reasons varied, Black people generally blamed the long history of medical malfeasance by government representatives, medical professionals and pharmaceutical executives for their mistrust in the COVID-19 vaccine; being more concerned about patterns of medical abuse and COVID-19 vaccine misinformation than actual viral infection.

Blacks, as well as other marginalised groups, are often positioned between the tension of actively building healthy lives and negotiating untrustworthy healthcare systems. We charge that their challenges are partially the result of an evaluation of medical schools by Abraham Flexner in 1910. Grounded in the ‘Black inferiority’ and ‘academic prestige hierarchy’ myths, Flexner's analysis of schools were warped by his ideologies on race and racism.

We chose the controversial Critical Race Theory (CRT) to revisit the Progressive Era context of the 1910 Flexner report; the racialised closure of Historically Black College and University (HBCU) medical schools; and the continuing impacts of the closures on Black medical professionalism and Black healthcare. As race was integral in shaping the policies Flexner and various prominent white men endorsed regarding Black higher education, it is fitting that CRT is used to highlight truths behind this so-called period of ‘progress’.

Using the Critical Race lens

Critical Race scholars observed patterns of political restraint and rights retraction after the Civil Rights Movement. They noticed the roles legal academics and practitioners played in the creation of statutes that reproduced political, economic and social oppression (Freeman, 1995).