There are many threads in the web of the history of how Chinese Medicine came to the United States. In order to understand the complex storyline detailing how acupuncture gained mainstream attention and developed a particular lineage in the eastern United States in the 1970s, it is necessary to introduce and describe the culture and major influences of that time.
Photo courtesy of the Taft Family
Chinese Medicine was brought to the United States by Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century and was used extensively during the Gold Rush in California. Traders had been harvesting American ginseng in Appalachia and exporting it to China for at least one hundred years before that. White American doctors were exposed to acupuncture in France and a few small enclaves of doctors experimented with the practice in the mid-1800s. However, acupuncture and Chinese medicine didn’t garner mainstream attention in the United States until later in the twentieth century.
In New York in the 1960’s and 1970’s, systemic racism and heroin addiction was devastating communities of color in the Bronx and Harlem. The United States government was engaged in the Vietnam War in many parts of Southeast Asia which had opened a pipeline for the supply of heroin to the US. The Western medical treatment for detoxifying from heroin addiction was (and is) the administration of methadone, a drug that masks the symptoms of heroin withdrawal and which is then ideally tapered off leaving the patient clean. However, methadone is extremely addictive itself and has a much longer and more painful withdrawal period making its use problematic and contributing to increasing (not decreasing) rates of drug addiction. This treatment was also often administered by White professionals who had little rapport with or connection to communities of color and their particular experiences of oppression. In addition, addiction is not only physical in nature, but also has psychological components that were not being addressed by mainstream Western medicine. Seeking treatment for addiction was not accessible, realistic, or effective for most people. All of these factors, in addition to the revolutionary climate in the United States at that time, contributed to the creation of fertile ground for acupuncture to take root.
The Lincoln Hospital was established in the Bronx in 1839 to receive formerly enslaved people from the South. By 1970, it was severely dilapidated with an extremely concerning lack of services, namely a lack of translators for the mostly Spanish-speaking patients to communicate with White doctors, and no treatment for drug addiction. It was also the only hospital in the South Bronx at that time.
The Young Lords were a coalition of Puerto Ricans formally organized in 1969 as “a human rights movement for self-determination for Puerto Rico and other nations, and for neighborhood-controlled development and empowerment.” They pushed political efforts to address gentrification, poverty, and oppression, first in Chicago, Illinois, and then expanding to other parts of the Unites States. The Young Lords organized services such as free health clinics, childcare cooperatives, free meal programs, and political education for Puerto Rican and other Latino communities.
The Black Panthers were founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Inspired by such leaders as James Baldwin, E. Franklin Frazier, Mao Zedong, Franz Fanong, and Che Guevara, the Black Panther Party espoused an orientation that viewed the Black community as a colony oppressed by the US government and police. Their belief was that the liberation of oppressed peoples was dependent on their gaining control of their own communities. To this end, the Black Panthers formed armed patrols that followed police around Black communities, as well as engaging in community service work such as setting up childcare co-ops, free breakfast programs, free medical clinics, and after-school programs. Their document, “The Ten Point Program” outlined the Party’s vision for ending the oppression of Black communities and other communities of color.
White Lightning was a White community organization based in the Bronx and founded in 1971 by ex-addicts, whose work focused on ending discrimination, class oppression, unjust drug laws, corrupt police, drug pushers and addiction, organized crime, and defunding drug treatment programs in which methadone was primarily used. They were influenced greatly by the Young Lords and created allyships with the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, the American Indian Movement, and the Mexican American United Farmworkers Union.
In November 1970, activists from the Young Lords, the Black Panthers, White Lightning, and the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement came together and took over the Nurse’s Residence Building of the Lincoln Hospital and established a drug treatment program which came to be known as the Lincoln Detox Collective. It was immediately sought out by hundreds seeking treatment for addiction. Lincoln Detox offered social support services and political education programs to inform patients about police brutality, drug distribution systems, and racial inequity. Patients often became participants in political movements.
During this time, US relations with China were opening up and the people at Lincoln Detox were hearing about Chinese culture, the Barefoot Doctors, and acupuncture. In 1973, the New York Times published an article about a group of doctors in Hong Kong led by Dr. H.L. Wen at Kwong Wah hospital, using auricular acupuncture with electrostimulation to relieve drug withdrawal symptoms. Another article was published about a doctor in Thailand using auricular acupuncture to treat a patient with respiratory issues and opium addiction. Clinicians at Lincoln Detox began using pressure stimulation of the ear points mentioned in the articles in addition to breathing techniques and massage, and noticed a significant reduction in withdrawal symptoms in their patients. They had been wanting an inexpensive, natural alternative to methadone that would offer greater autonomy, and it was looking like they may have found it.
Dr. Mutulu Shakur, the director of the Lincoln Detox Center from 1971-1978, along with his colleagues Walter Bosque and Vicente ‘Panama’ Alba, traveled widely to learn more about acupuncture. They studied with Mario Wexu at L’Institute D’Acupuncture Du Quebec and received degrees in acupuncture in 1976. In 1977, they opened the Lincoln Detox Acupuncture School, a three-year acupuncture program. This same group traveled to China in the 1970s along with Dr. Tolbert Small, the official doctor of the Black Panther Party whose practice was (and is) in Oakland, California. They were able to personally connect to the work of the Barefoot Doctor movement, which was providing basic, low-cost, grassroots healthcare, including acupuncture, to the people.
All of this work being done to increase empowerment, autonomy, and freedom for oppressed people in the US attracted the attention of the illegal government program COINTELPRO. The aim of COINTELPRO was to undermine the decolonial progress being made in communities of color so that the US government could maintain control and power over marginalized groups. To this end, many of the leaders of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and the Lincoln Detox Center were targeted, and, in some cases, murdered because of the uplifting work they were achieving in their communities. Richart Taft was a doctor instrumental in the work that the Lincoln Detox center was doing and, in 1974, was one of the casualties of COINTELPRO.
In 1978, the mayor of New York City, Ed Koch, shut down the Lincoln Detox program in Lincoln Hospital. The Lincoln Detox Program then reopened in another location with all new staff and very limited treatment options. It was now a private enterprise and there were no longer political education groups or community advocacy.
Dr. Mutulu Shakur continued to work for the liberation of communities of color after the closing of the original Lincoln Detox Collective. He founded the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) in 1978 in Harlem. This organization started acupuncture schools and worked with state legislators to recognize non-MD acupuncturists.
Michael Smith was a doctor at the Lincoln Detox Center after Richard Taft was murdered and he founded the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) in 1985. NADA works to increase community wellness for behavioral health including addiction, mental health, and trauma. The NADA protocol of five auricular acupuncture points to treat detoxification and addiction came out of the revolutionary work at the Lincoln Detox Center and is now one of the most widely used acupuncture systems in the US.
Dr. Tolbert Small continued his work in communities of color in Oakland, California, incorporating acupuncture in his residencies at Highland Hospital as well as in his own clinic, the Harriet Tubman Medical Office, and the Free Clinics he founded for offering treatment options to underserved and low-income communities in the East Bay.
The fight for liberation and equity for marginalized and oppressed people in the United States in the 1970s was instrumental in bringing acupuncture to this country. It is a history that is marginalized itself in a society that continues to uphold systemic racism, yet acupuncture would not be what it is today in the US if it weren’t for the hard work, sacrifice, and dedication of those that revolutionized the treatment of drug addiction in New York at the Lincoln Detox Collective. We have a significant debt of gratitude to them and can honor their legacies by continuing the fight for equity by offering healthcare to all.
Resources
The Abolitionist: a Publication of Critical Resistance, & Says:, M. (2015, July 01). Lincoln detox Center: The people's drug program. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://abolitionistpaper.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/lincoln-detox-center-the-peoples-drug-
Bio. (2021, March 21). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://mutulushakur.com/about/
The Black Panthers: Ten Point Program. (2016). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from http://www.blacklivesmattersyllabus.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BPP_Ten_Point_Program.pdf
Collisson, C. (2019, August 02). Black Panther Party. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-party/
Donovan, M. (Director). (2020). Dope Is Death [Video file]. Canada: Circle Collective. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.docnyc.net/film/dope-is-death/
Dr. Chuanxin Wang - OM Clinical / Faculty Supervisor. (n.d.). Early history of acupuncture in America. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.amcollege.edu/blog/history-acupuncture-early-america
Dr. Tolbert Small: Professional life. (2018, December 12). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from http://the-peoples-doctor.com/professional-life/
Havis, R. J. (2018, May 30). New York exhibition on TCM shows US history of Chinese medicine. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.scmp.com/culture/arts-entertainment/article/2148322/tcm-and-black-panthers-chinese-medicine-and-its-american
History. (n.d.). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from http://nationalyounglords.com/?page_id=13
Holley, S. (2020, November 09). How acupuncture became a Radical remedy in the Bronx. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/lincoln-detox-radical-roots-acupuncture
Hong Kong doctors Use acupuncture to Relieve Addicts' withdrawal symptoms. (1973, April 05). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/05/archives/hong-kong-doctors-use-acupuncture-to-relieve-addicts-withdrawal.html
NADA. (2021, February 15). Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://acudetox.com/about-nada/
Payne, R. (1973). White lightning, no. 13. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from https://rozsixties.unl.edu/items/show/739
Rohleder, L. (2017). Acupuncture points are holes: A case study in social entrepreneurship. Portland, OR: People's Organization of Community Acupuncture.
Shakur, M. (2008). Mutulu Shakur: On The History Of Acupuncture & COINTELPRO. Retrieved April 07, 2021, from http://www.sundiataacoli.org/mutulu-shakur-on-the-history-of-the-use-of-acupuncture-by-revolutionary-health-workers-to-treat-drug-addiction-and-us-government-attacks-under-the-cover-of-the-counterintelligence-program-cointelpr-32
Comments