The article "V.A. Hospital Pays For Human Guinea Pigs: Performs Psychosurgery on Black Oakland Youth" discusses an advertisement running in the San Francisco Chronicle recruiting healthy male veterans for a paid research study where they would receive two spinal taps over two days.

Ad for Psychosurgery

"V.A. Hospital Pays For Human Guinea Pigs: Performs Psychosurgery on Black Oakland Youth," was the third and final article published in the Black Panther about Lou Byers, published a week after "Mother of Psychosurgery Victim Appeal for Community Help."

University of Wisconsin - Madison

- April 30, 1977 Article
- "Mother of Psychosurgery Victim Appeal for Community Help"
- "V.A. Hospital Pays for Human Guinea Pigs: Perms Psychosurgery on Black Oakland Youth"

Black Panther Articles on Lou Byers

The appeal noted in the article title is that the probation department is threatening to revoke his parole.

Byers Legal Troubles and Parole

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

Black Disability Politics

The April 30, 1977 article on Lou Byers covers Lou's time in the military, incarceration, and experience with psychosurgery.

April 30, 1977 Lou Byers Article

The week after the publishing of the April 30, 1977 the Black Panthers published an article based on information from an interview with Margarite Wallace, titled "Mother of Psychosurgery Victim Appeals for Community Help."

"Mother of Psychosurgery Victim Appeals for Community Help"

"V.A. Hospital Pays For Human Guinea Pigs: Performs Psychosurgery on Black Oakland Youth"

- Byers experience of racism in the army and links to suicidal ideation
- Byers' race being represented as a key factor in his treatment at the hospital
- Byers' mental disability being framed as produced and sustained from racist and ableist social structures.

How the Article Emphasizes Race and Racism

Schalk notes that this rhetoric playing on ableist fears by activists of disablement, incapacitation, and loss of autonomy are magnified with the  use of the term vegetable to describe Byers. Schalk also notes this usage is directly in contrasts to the Black Panthers coalition work with disability organizations.

Example: Use of Vegetable in Reference to Byers

Two articles on Lou Byers show the enactment of Schalk's third approach by the Black panther by  stating "the Black Panther Party's Free Legal Aid and Educational Program is looking into various resources so as to assist Lou Byers" and the final article states that Byers' mother with the aid of the Black Panther Party is seeing legal and medical help for her son. 

Learn Before

Related

Learn After