Madness: Race and Insanity in America

A devastating look at how mental health 'care' has been historically used to oppress the Black community in the United States - told through the prism of a segregated asylum, Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane in Maryland.

In the tradition of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the United States' last segregated asylums.

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.

In Madness, Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital. 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.

As Crownsville Hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, it 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.