The Black Panthers’ free medical clinics you didn’t learn about in school

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By Olivia B. Waxman

Staff Writer

The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified centuries-old racial disparities in access to quality healthcare in the U.S. and the long history of racism in the healthcare system has fueled mistrust among Black and Brown patients especially. The Black Panther Party took radical action to solve these problems in the early 1970s by setting up free medical clinics offering preventative care staffed by volunteer doctors and nurses, setting a model for providing healthcare in marginalized communities that is still being carried out today.

In the sixth installment of our “History You Didn’t Learn” series, TIME producer Arpita Aneja and I explored how the myth of the Black Panthers as a violent group came to be more famous than their community-focused health initiatives.

Here’s more of the history that made news this week:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM

Column: What Amanda Gorman Teaches Us About Our Shared America

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

"What community colleges share with public libraries and poetry of a certain kind is nothing less than the democratic spirit, the same spirit that Gorman defended and celebrated in her poem"

Filmmaker Adam Curtis on Power, Technology and How Ideas Get Into People's Heads

By Billy Perrigo

The BBC filmmaker's new documentary 'Can't Get You Out of My Head' offers an "emotional history" of the postwar world

Korean-American Farmers on Minari and Their Own Experiences

By Andrew R. Chow

There are many Korean American farmers who acutely recognize the experiences portrayed in Minari—and, until now, had never seen themselves reflected onscreen with such specificity

Column: The Farmers' Protests Are a Turning Point for India's Democracy

By Simran Jeet Singh

"These calls refer to a period of Indian history reminiscent of what's happening today"

Review: The Ghost of Noël Coward Is Nowhere to Be Found in the Dull Blithe Spirit

By Stephanie Zacharek

This adaptation of Coward's 1941 play scrubs away his acidity as if it were tarnish and not the actual shine

FROM THE TIME VAULT

Today in 1928: Westminster Dog Show

“In the ringed and shadowy eyes of animals, more clearly than in the secretive countenance of man, is expressed the mystery, the dark sorrow of existence. Of all beasts, dogs are perhaps the most melancholy in their looks; of all dogs, the slouching basset hound is the most sad. Of all basset hounds, none is more woebegone, more tragic than a certain basset hound puppy. Last week he sat nuzzling his weak chin into the loose bib of flesh which an arbitrary heredity has draped around his neck. In the kennels, at Huntington, L.I., of Gerald M. Livingston, his forlorn yapping roused to dreary derision a crow in the near woods. Perhaps the basset hound puppy heard a prophecy in the dismal utterances of the black bird; what, he wondered, did the future hold for him, a prince of basset hounds, by Walhampton Andrew (titles: International Champion, English Champion, American Champion), out of Walhampton Dainty? The puppy yelped and whined, for he did not know.” (Feb. 27, 1928)

Today in 1975: Hockey

“He needs the glove of an all-star shortstop, the agility of a gold-medal gymnast, the reflexes of a championship racing-car driver, the eye of a .400 hitter and the mind of a geometrician. Even then he is nothing if he has not conquered fear, for he lives in a vortex of violence in the world's fastest team sport. He is the hockey goalie, the masked man, the magnet for action in a war on ice…[Last year] In the playoffs [Bernie Parent] shut down the high-scoring offenses of New York and Boston, and helped the Flyers to make hockey history by becoming the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. For his extraordinary performance, Parent was named playoff Most Valuable Player.” (Feb. 24, 1975)

Today in 1995: State of unions

“The institution of marriage underwent a particularly rebellious and dramatic shift when women entered the workforce. 'People don't have to stay married because of economic forces now,' explains Frank Furstenberg Jr., co-author of the 1991 Divided Families and a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has been studying divorce for 20 years. 'We're in the midst of trying to renegotiate what the marriage contract is-what men and women are supposed to do as partners.' But the chips in these negotiations are often young children, emotionally fragile, economically vulnerable-for despite their work outside the home, most women still suffer a severe income drop after divorce. The by-product of what remains the world's highest divorce rate is millions of children thrown into poverty, millions more scarred by bifurcated lives and loyalties.” (Feb. 27, 1995)

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB

More on Black Panthers: Historian Elizabeth Hinton provides more context for the FBI surveillance in Judas and the Black Messiah.

Trivia: Historian Erik Loomis posted a thread on Twitter on the largest U.S. strike before the Civil War.

Knowledge is power: For the Washington Post, Julie A. Cohn, a historian of energy in Texas, explains how Texas’ unique power grid came to be.

Trailblazer: On CNN, Abby Phillip interviewed Claudette Colvin, who paved the way for Rosa Parks, but stayed out of the spotlight.

Game on: WATE’s Robert Holder profiled University of Tennessee history professor Tore Olsson who is teaching a class on the real history behind the Red Dead Redemption video game series.