New England Journal of Medicine reckons with its racist past and complicity in slavery
In the 19th century, journal authors routinely used racist and dehumanizing language about Black Americans with little pushback from NEJM editors.
The New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s oldest continually published medical journal, publicly reckoned with its history and complicity surrounding slavery and racism Wednesday, publishing the first of a series of essays by independent historians on the role the prestigious publication has played in perpetuating racist thinking in medicine that continues to this day.
In their essay, the historians describe the journal, founded in 1812, as “bound to slavery” because the families of one of the journal’s founders, James Jackson, had owned enslaved people and benefited financially from the slave trade, and the other founder, John Collins Warren, came from a family that also enriched itself through trade closely tied to slavery.
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