MAY IT PLEASE THE COURTS: THE LEGAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST HOSPITAL DISCRIMINATION. P. Reynolds 1 ; 1 Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD PURPOSE: Hospital discrimination was widespread throughout the United States and in many jurisdictions legally sanctioned as late as the mid-1960s. Discrimination most commonly was experienced as the denial of staff privileges to minority physicians and dentists, refusal to admit minority applicants to nursing and residency training positions, and lack of medical and surgical services to minority patients in many urban private and public institutions. A national campaign to eliminate discrimination in hospital clinical services and education programs involved the collaboration among minority medical and activist organizations, and a direct attack against the hospital policies and practices through litigation culminating in two landmark decisions which both emerged from the 4th Circuit Court of the United States. METHODS: Research was conducted in national archives, in manuscript collections of minority and non-minority physicians, in legal documents with review of relevant court cases, and in primary and secondary law and medical journals. RESULTS: The first hospital discrimination case brought before the courts was filed in North Carolina in 1956 by three physicians, Dr. Hubert Eaton, Dr. Daniel Roane, and Dr. Samuel Gray, and their lawyer, Conrad Pearson. While the courts initially denied the plaintiffs the relief they sought, the NAACP lawyers used information emerging from Eaton vs James Walker Memorial Hospital when deciding the most essential elements in constructing a``test case''. Their attack centered on the federal government's use of public funds to construct``Separate but Equal'' hospitals throughout the south. That same year, the City of Chicago passed the Harvey ± Campbell Ordinance to prevent racial discrimination in Chicago hospitals. In 1962 the second hospital discrimination case in North Carolina was filed by George Simkins and the lawyers for the NAACP against the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and Wesley Long Hospital. This case would determine ultimately the legal foundation of``Separate but Equal'' in hospital policies and practices. Two years later African ± American physicians in Chicago sued 56 hospitals throughout the city for refusal to adhere to the Harvey ± Campbell Ordinance charging they had been denied staff appointments to hospitals in the area because of their race. By the time the Medicare Hospital Certification Program was implemented in the summer of 1966, over 35 suits had been filed by physicians and citizens with the assistance of NAACP lawyers against hospitals and nursing homes located in communities throughout the south. The Medicare hospital racial integration guidelines themselves would be tested in the courts through Cypress versus Newport News Hospital Association. CONCLUSION: The legal foundation for``Separate but Equal'' in hospital policies and practices was eroded through a series of court battles developed and argued by NAACP lawyers culminating in Simkins versus Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital (1963) and Cypress versus Newport News Hospital Association (1967). The first of these two cases challenged the federal government's use of public funds to expand and maintain segregated hospital care. The second case reaffirmed the federal government's use of public funds to force hospitals to open up patient admission policies, education programs and hospital staff privileges to all citizens and physicians regardless of race, gender, age or nationality. Successful pursuit of a legal strategy against racist hospital policies and practices was a critical cornerstone in a national campaign to eliminate discrimination in health care delivery.`I THINK MY HEART GOT A LITTLE STONE IN IT NOW: CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLENT VICTIMIZATION AMONG YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN. J. Rich 1 , C. Grey 1 ; 1 Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA PURPOSE: Violence remains a leading cause of death and disability for young African American men. Recurrent violent injury is also well documented in the medical literature. The purpose of this study is to understand how the experience of violent injury changes the lives of young black men and predisposes them to recurrent victimization. METHODS: Participants in the study were 34 African American men, between the ages of 18 and 30, who were admitted to an urban medical center for violent injury. In ± depth, semistructured interviews were conducted within 2 weeks of the initial injury and, in a subset of participants, a follow-up interview was conducted 2 months later. Analysis was performed using grounded theory methods and narrative analysis to identify prominent themes common across interviews. RESULTS: The narratives of young black men who are victims of violence highlight the physical pain and suffering that they experience. More prominent, however, are accounts of negative interactions with the police, both prior to the injury and in the immediate aftermath, who treat them as perpetrators regardless of the circumstances of their injuries. Also prominent are vivid descriptions of disabling symptoms of traumatic stress, and profound feelings of fear and vulnerability. These extreme feelings of vulnerability, coupled with mistrust of the police and other community institutions, lead these young men to develop their own strategies to remain safe and to deal with their distress. Some of these strategies either hinder their ability to heal from their emotional trauma (such as self-treating with drugs and/or alcohol) or put them at risk for recurrent injury (such as acquiring a weapon). Few young men expressed knowledge of resources to address their psychoemotional issues. CONCLUSION: The physical and emotional consequences of violent injury, coupled with a social environment that is hostile and unsafe, places young black male victims of violence at risk for recurrent injury. Efforts to reduce recurrent violent injury will be more effective if they address both the emotional consequences of injury and the often oppressive social environments in which these young men live.