This comprehensive annotated bibliography, the first of its kind, provides lengthy entries on articles dealing with black health published during three time periods from post reconstruction to 1960. The compilers', Mitchell F. Rice and Woodrow Jones, Jr., introduction reviews the literature that composes the bibliography and discusses trends in the mortality, morbidity, and health care utilization behaviors of blacks from slavery to the mid-20th century. This cogent essay places the social context of black health care into perspective and enhances both linkages to the dominant themes of each period and a fuller understanding of the history of health care inequities in the U.S. A companion volume by the same compilers', Black American Health: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1987), treats the more recent literature of the 1970s and 1980s.

Following the in-depth introduction, the bibliography is divided into three chapters that annotate literature from the post reconstruction to the early 20th century, 1871-1919; from 1920 to 1950; and from 1951-1960. Each entry consists of an item number, author, title and source, date of publication, and page numbers as well as an exceptionally thorough and thoughtful annotation that averages ten lines in length. Subject and author indexes complete the work which will prove invaluable to students, scholars, and researchers in the fields of black history, medicine, and public health.