In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , a compelling 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, told by an award-winning journalist on her decade-long search for sanity in America’s mental healthcare system. 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 listeners 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. She blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth of investigative research and archival documents. Madness chronicles the stories of Black families whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity.

Hylton also grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations. As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America’s evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. During its peak years, the hospital’s wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients.

By the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America’s new focus. 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.

In the heart of the Jim Crow South existed a hidden world where the boundaries between race and mental health were blurred and manipulated by societal biases. "Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" delves into this shadowy intersection, unraveling the disturbing realities faced by African Americans deemed mentally ill during this oppressive era. Trapped within the walls of segregated asylums, these individuals endured profound injustices, their stories often lost to history.

This book sheds light on their experiences, exploring how race influenced diagnosis, treatment, and perception of mental illness, forging a narrative both haunting and enlightening.

Unveils the intersection of race and mental health during the Jim Crow era. Explores personal accounts and case studies from segregated asylums. Highlights systemic abuses and disparities faced by African American patients.

Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" offers an illuminating exploration into the racially charged climate of mental health care in the South. By examining personal stories and institutional practices the book reveals how racial prejudices influenced psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. The deeply entrenched racism of the era is unveiled through historical records and personal accounts highlighting the dehumanizing conditions in segregated asylums.

This narrative challenges traditional perceptions of mental illness emphasizing the cultural and social factors that shaped psychiatric practices. Readers are taken on a journey through history uncovering the painful truths about racial injustice that permeated the mental health system.

The book bridges historical analysis with personal stories offering a comprehensive understanding of racial disparities in mental health care By spotlighting individual experiences it humanizes the broader systemic issues allowing readers to connect on a personal level Its meticulous research and powerful storytelling challenge readers to confront uncomfortable truths about racial and mental health history.