LOCATION: Tuskegee, Alabama
PERIOD: 1933-1963
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Luther Harper (1898-1963); Louise Stoner (1900-1953)
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, though by the end of the study medical advancements meant it was entirely treatable. The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than 100 died as a result.
Luther Harper was one of these men. He contracted the disease while serving in the Navy in the Pacific islands. Ironically he did not die from it, although he accidentally infected his wife who did succumb to the disease.
TUSKEGEE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)
Luther picked at the scab on his palm
As he softly chanted the 23rd psalm
He’d been at his hand with his pocketknife
Making the marks of the crucified Christ
Luther reads his Bible everyday
Calls it reading but he just stares at the page
A sister lady taught him from the book
She also got him work as a fry cook
That was before Tuskegee
March 23rd, 1933
Which is why that psalm is the one he knew
Luther honed his blade on the sole of his shoe
The doctors said they could heal him
But Luther believed they would kill him
His father’d said you can’t trust a white man
Luther softly hummed and dug at his hand
He relied on his wife, sweet Louise
She died this year from his disease
Luther wonders why her, and not him
He recites the words to his psalm again
That was after Tuskegee
March 23rd, 1953
Which is why that psalm is the one he sang
Luther used his blade and climbed into the pain
Luther picked at the scab on his palm
His wife had always been like a balm
He lived ten more years but succumbed to the disease
The last word on his lips was Louise
He cursed himself, the doctors, and Tuskegee
But the last word on his lips was Louise
© 2022 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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