Skip to content

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

Photo of Felicia D.
Hosted By
Felicia D.
Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

Details

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton

Book Summary:

“On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a Jim Crow asylum.

In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland...

In Madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.” - amazon.com

Here are several options for purchasing the book:

Support Community Book Center:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/madness-the-search-for-sanity-in-an-asylum-and-the-legacy-of-race-in-mental-health-antonia-a-hylton/20055429?ean=9781538723692

Support Baldwin and Co.:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/madness-the-search-for-sanity-in-an-asylum-and-the-legacy-of-race-in-mental-health-antonia-a-hylton/20055429?ean=9781538723692

Amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Race-Insanity-Crow-Asylum/dp/1538723697

You can also support your local library by checking out a book, an eBook or listening to the audiobook for free. I use the Libby app from the New Orleans Public Library. https://libbyapp.com/welcome

Peace and justice!

Photo of Black Reads — A Black Author Book Club group
Black Reads — A Black Author Book Club
See more events
Baldwin & Co.
1030 Elysian Fields Ave · New Orleans, LA
Google map of the user's next upcoming event's location
FREE