Tuskegee Experiment
For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 600 black men—399 in the late stages of syphilis and 201 in a control group. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from Macon, one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” (1) their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis, which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”
Prison System
I’m a supporter of:
The Innocence Project
A national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Prison Policy Initiative
The non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative documents the impact of mass incarceration on individuals, communities, and the national welfare
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/
Prisoners of the Census:
Maps tracking the proliferation of prisons.
http://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/prisonproliferation.html
Blue Mountain Center
During a “Prison Issues” residency at Blue Mountain Center I performed with a wonderful poet, Jorge Antonio Renaud.
Paul Rucker
Paul Rucker is an interdisciplinary artist (cellist-bassist-composer-visual artist-creator of interactive sound/video installations). Rucker has released two critically acclaimed CDs of his compositions, and he composes new music presented in a way that allows the viewer-listener the opportunity to interact with the work (participants can trigger sounds with the wave of a hand, touch of a finger, or press of a button). His pieces have been on display at Consolidated Works, Motel Motel Motel, Jack Straw New Media Gallery, the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, and On the Boards.
Calendar
Permanent Exhibit