Psychiatrist. Medical school and by divide their time between treating patients psychiatry. What made you go into psychiatry . Good question. When i was in medical school i was decided between psychiatry and cardiology which are two very different deals. Actually leaning towards the cardiology part initially. As i was getting to see patients in getting into the nittygritty of being a doctor, i found a really like the idea of talking to people and helping people through the problems in that way more so than the more mechanical side of treating their hard. Thats how it all unfolded. Youre also an author. What possessed you to write a book. This book that ive written is basically a memoir of my journey through medical treatment written through the lens of race. There are a lot of physician authors out there and a lot of books out there but i feel like raise is an important issue in medicine and these authors largely overlooked the subject. I think thats a really so many of the leading medical schools, Teaching Hospitals all across america are situate and committees with large black populations. Usually with an historic interest within the communities and these large institutions. Thats a story that hasnt been told in a narrative way. So writing this book i was trying to tell two stories. My own personal journey of becoming a young black man from a workingclass background scaling the accidental medical out of but at the same time telling the stories of everyday black people facing Serious Health problems and trying to weave those two stories together. What is your background . I grew up in maryland suburban maryland kind of on the border between washington, d. C. And baltimore. Workingclass community, all black. Not segregated but thats how it all played out. That was my background growing up. Were your parents educated . Well did they support, encourage your education . Yes, they did encourage my education, absolutely. My parents grew up in a time of segregation in a very rural part of virginia. Didnt get a chance to finish high school. He went into the military and worked as at a food store, a job in a typical system and worked as a meat cutter for some years until he retired. My mom didnt finish high school, didnt have a chance to go to college. Family couldnt afford that and she worked for the federal government for many years. I did have an older brother and he was really like the first person in a family who went to college and graduate from college. So he was that sort of role model in a way. The community we grew up in it was almost like going to give out was to be an athlete. Thats the case in so many africanamerican immunities. He was a living example of someone who could succeed in this other way and i would love an important part of my development. At what point in your life did you decide you want to go into medical school . Probably high school. I was a good student at an early age. When i got to high school i was able to test into this Magnet Program to us in our school district. Science and technology program. The teacher basically maybe do. I didnt want to do it at first and it was was transformative. I was able to get exposed to people who came from different backgrounds, white, asian people. A company sina the world and another opportunity. As i was things that i could do really well i said medicine seem like a good way to really get back to the committee and make a difference in a positive way but also help people in my community. I didnt have any examples in my own life up until then. Black man in a white coat is the name of the book and on page three you write being black can be bad for your health. Yes. Thats very true. Basically any health measure, number that you want to look at whether its Life Expectancy which is considerably shorter particularly admin, infant mortality rate death rates of all sorts of cancers all of them are considerably worse in black people than in white people. Really any other group you can compare them to in america. There are a lot of reasons why that is. I would say theres probably three ways of looking at that. Theres structural kind of system based factors, things like black people having less likely to have Health Insurance more likely to be isolated in Geographic Areas where theres less access to good quality medical. Thats one factor then theres the doctorpatient relationship factor would like people, for many reasons of history i connected more wary of seeking treatment and also they present their health care much later preventable disease are now more advanced. Thats a big factor. Thirdly, this Committee Level factors in terms of individual Health Choices in terms of diet and exercise the these are all factors as well larger problems. How many black psychiatrists are there in america . I dont have an exact number, but in general there are probably five or six in psychiatry as a less. Anywhere from three to 4 . The numbers vary but its pretty small. Your patience black, white, and next . Mix. That leads to some interesting things. And a place like, as i mentioned, many of these medical schools are located in these communities that have large black populations. Durum and where duke is as about 40 like. Johns hopkins, which is close to my hometown in baltimore, so you have large groups of black patients and very small numbers of black doctors. Theres no doubt about that. Whats the reaction you get from a white patient, from a black patient . From a white patient, so when i was younger and starting out most people have very positive reactions, but there many people who are wary of the. Theyre not sure what to make of you. There are some people who i would say maybe they harbor some prejudices. Some cases i have pretty frank cases or overtly prejudiced that are right about some those in the book. But i think on average most people are kind of a little wary but have to get to know them and get to talk to them they cant come around. Theres this idea of having to prove yourself which is its own challenge. Made the expectation for sure not as good as another doctor and check the kind of work with that. Thats something you get from your white patients or patients across the board . I. T. Across the board but particularly more pronounced with white patients. Ive had the same issue of black patients. Its happened but its more commonly happen with white patients but it does happen with all of them. Has it changed over the years in the last 20 years, the perception of a black doctor . And how people view them . I think actually there are more black doctors. If you go back 40, 50 years ago there was very, very few black doctors. The number seven increased upwards over the last 30 years or so and i think that is affected perception some. In many parts of the country theyre still very few black doctors. People may have never seen a black doctor in their life. Why did you write the book . I felt like there was this untold story. Actually theres a lot of talk about disparities and inequality, but not as much about that in the health realm. And even more so not in a way that sort of accessible what youre telling it to distort of everyday people. Circa one aboard one of telling information, certainly a story is what that really means to people on the ground. It is one example from the book of a patients reaction to, positive, negative, whatever. When stewart that i think stands out this is what i was an intern, my first year as the brainy doctor that really most difficult year as a young doctor i was on a medical team, medical service and an elderly white gentleman came in. When he came to the hospital he saw black nurses, black nurses aides, several black step in hospital. And he made a comment in no Uncertain Terms that he did not want a black doctor. He didnt use the word that he did not want a black doctor. It just so happened that he had the misfortune come if you will of being assigned to the one team in the hospital that had a black doctor, which was me. You can imagine as part of the best way to start a doctorpatient relationship. He had his perception. I internet negative thoughts about it. As you can imagine. So this gentleman was very sick old and towards the end of his life. Sm had kind of similar terms in the way they responded to me am initially. But over the course of several weeks in the hospital hour by hour, day by day i was able to chip away at this huge racial divide that we had. And by the end he was really very receptive to me. His family was very receptive to be. It was an amazing transformation and to maybe think about that how when someone is listed, you kind of strip away some of the superficial barriers that we all seem to have and make a human connection. I think thats a lesson that we can learn for everyday life. Its a lesson from the medical board that it can be applied to everyday life. Nowadays we are in a time with where there so much racial discussion is often so unpleasant. Isnt there unfairness to that, that you have to work at chipping away at prejudices before you can treat the patient . Sure. I talk about in the book. Theres a lot of aspects of it and thats part of what i wanted to write the book because very few black doctors have written about his perspective in this experience. Theres unfairness to it but i think its more important for me to focus on how to deal with it and how to overcome it. Its certainly not fair. Black man in a white coat comes out in september of 2015. The author is dr. Damon tweedy. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. On sunday july 5, booktv is live with us on the author Peter Schweitzer on in depth, or live monthly callin show. He is the author of nine books which opened a critical lexicon and politicians. He is the founder of the Government Accountability institute and a Senior Editor at large for breitbart news. His most recent bestseller is clinton cash when he looks at the money made by bill and Hillary Clinton since leaving the white house. Welcome to omaha booktv. Founded in 1854 all along the missouri river, omaha was a starting point for pioneers traveling westward. Today its nebraskas largest city with a population of over 400,000 people with Prominent Industries such as meatpacking and insurance. With the help of our skimming dish and cable partners, for the next one i we learn about its history from local office. We begin with the omaha de porres club, grupo fought against Racial Discrimination in the city. The omaha de porres club was this phenomenal story of an Unlikely Group of people in an unlikely place, at an improbable time of history that faced and challenged Racial Discrimination and segregation in omaha, nebraska. And it was coming to place in the late 40s and early 50s predating others of rights activities come if not by decades at least by years, and it was a group that maybe defied a stereotype when you think about a Civil Rights Group of men, women, young and old black and white, led by two white men. So its this very wonderful story that has all these amazing connections and like i said in an unlikely place. The quote the birmingham of the north, quote that i found by John Howard Griffin was the author of black like me and John Howard Griffin used that quote to describe omaha in this description he gave within the 60s, and omaha had a reputation in the Africanamerican Community in omaha and in the United States as a city that when you came if you were black you needed to keep your head down and you need to be aware that you are going to be served in restaurants and you were going to be able to stay in hotels and at the was, like the were in many cities there was an informal industry of staying in homes in the black community, eating at the restaurants even if you were an africanamerican that was part of a band that was playing in a white hotel or part of a plan to spin put on in a mostly white attended theater. That is not the quote omaha shares probably but it is a quote that i found repeated that it was known and a description of birmingham of the north was an apt description if youre an africanamerican. The omaha de porres club start in 1947 by two gentlemen one was a Catholic Priest who is a jesuit at Creighton University which is about a mile and half south of where we are. His name was john markoe coming of the found of the de porres club was a judgment made denny holland, gentlemen who is actually my father. He was a 20 yearold creighton student at the end father markoe documentable with it talked of the time social justice and decided to start a group to talk about it. My dad said he remembers thinking joined a prayer group, theyre going to sit around maybe look at the bible, talk about what the moral and theological implications were. Father markoe had different ideas. Over the next seven years father markoe was the core innocent of that group as they moved into boycott and ticketing and challenging and doing things that my dad said scared him spit was there when the de porres club again operations, the idea was, in effect the terms of rights wasnt, they use the term social justice because civil rights wasnt part of the national lexicon at that time. The idea of civil rights was so far removed from the idea of the Greater Community of omaha or the United States that they were kind of operating an executive i like to say they are operating without a net. That it were not for support groups, they were not the prior experiences of other groups to challenge Racial Discrimination and segregation. They were, in some cases they were making up their strategy the techniques that they used because there wasnt im an educator added to the presentation often for middle school and High School Students, and i say you can choose among any notice how did that protest of you guys last week and . There wasnt any of that. They werent saying well will try to challenge this this is ever going to hand out leaflets but were not there yet because were not sure if its legal. In the Meeting Minutes and within sight we will wait because we have to check with award to find out if we can legally hand out flyers in front of the business. They without far ahead of the became the norm later. The urban league with stronger north lamar. Is led by Whitney Young who ended up being a National Leader of the urban league during the 60s. There was a Strong Branch of the naacp. I think a this omaha de porres club which is operating outside of the bounds of the regular establishment of how you get things done in this city. It created a tension in the black community. In fact, one of the very first levels of tensions created by the omaha de porres club was because they were racially mixed. They were black men and white women, black women and white men meeting together going out and having a beer after the meeting in north omaha and that created a stir. Because people in north omaha saw that as a problem. They didnt get any attention drawn to north omaha because they didnt come the de porres club was seen as a dating center is one of the terms that was used. There was that tension of utah black men and white women meeting and they are single. Thats a problem. That was one of the first problems they came up against in the black community, but really once people understood what the de porres club billy was trying to do they garnered support over the years from the urban they come from naacp. They ended up working close with both of those groups, from ministers of local churches as they saw the de porres club was about challenging and changing the institutional racism and oman. Once they understood that was what they were about. In fact, father markoe once gave a speech to a group of sodomy the de porres club at other motivation and he set up and quickly said the goal of the almost de porres club is to kick jim crows out of all and then he sat back down. They were not there for anything else. When people understood that they tended to get on board or at least not resist the efforts of the de porres club. The first workout was a block down the street. As i take your but it was a laundry that was a white own business to refuse to hire blacks to do anything other than wash the laundry even though center is located in the black community almost all its customers were black, they would neither anyone in the come in the blacks in the office when he blocked a voice to drive the delivery vans. So the de porres club this wouldvewould have been about 1950 after couple years of doing as my dad said this week, pleasant things, went to this this and said we think this is in favor of the business said why are you here . This hasnt been a problem. We have been doing this for years and nobody has ever complained. We are not change our policies. So the de porres club come at a cost a big star, they decided to organize a boycott. The black community has a tendency, should they do this . Isnt going to cause some problems beyond what we wanted to . They started a boycott and the business went out of business. They sold to another laundry and eventually that laundry hired a black a clerk. As it happened in a lot of these efforts, the Ripple Effect or other laundries to avoid a challenge by the de porres club started hiring africanamerican employees. One brilliant businessman open ebusiness on north 24th street that employed only africanamericans including the manager and assistant manager. But a boycott start in july 1950 and it finally came to fruition in february of 1951. Over a period of months, efforts, letters leaflets that that happen. So the have a successful boycott. Then they boycotted the Cocacola Bottling Company and same thing. They would have said youre located in the black Community Comp even higher in africanamericans. Cocacola said yeah, so . We never have, why should we . The de porres club start a boycott and coca