Civil rights organizers depended on the hospital after police attacked them as they marched over Edmund Pettus Bridge
Lopez connects Good Samaritan Hospital to the Civil Rights Movement by explaining how civil rights organizers depended on the hospital after police attacked them. This shows the hospital's importance beyond medical treatment.
The Catholic organizations understood health care provision as a Christian duty and cited Matthew 25’s call to serve the least of these
Lopez appeals to readers sense of compassion and responsibility toward others. This encourages readers to see healthcare as something communities should support.
ost Americans consider access to medical care a necessity, not a luxury.
This hook sentence immediately establishes the importance of healthcare by framing it as a basic necessity rather than a luxury. It encourages readers to see access to medical care as something everyone deserves.
In 1965, in Selma, Ala., for instance, there were two prominent segregated hospitals. One admitted no Black people, and the other only had “13 beds reserved for Negroes.
Historical facts makes this issue harder to ignore. Lopez provides evidence of segregation in Selma hospitals, showing that racial inequality in healthcare was a real and documented problem. This establishes credibility and supports her argument.
This problem isn’t new. In fact, for Black Alabamians, they date back to segregation
Lopez uses historical context to show that this problem is not new. By explaining how Black Alabamians have faced unequal access to healthcare since segregation, she connects past discrimination to the current rural hospital crisis.
It will be a heath care crisis — one that can only be solved with more resources.
LOGOS: Leaves reader with a blunt and urgent plea almost making it clear that ignoring this problem has a cost of human lives.
most were poor — which meant they couldn’t pay their bills
LOGOS: This was a sad turn on how a hospital basically died because people who needed healthcare simply just couldn't afford it.
Between 2010 and 2021, the American Hospital Association reported that there were 136 rural hospital closures around the country. This year, nearly one-third of the remaining rural hospitals could shutter
LOGOS: These numbers help cut through some of the wording which helps frame the crisis.
And it’s only gotten worse. Mostly because of financial strain, rural hospital closures in the Black Belt have continued
Almost a bridge from yesterday to today or past to presence.
While some local white individuals offered donations and professed pride in the care Good Samaritan provided, the hospital received dismal assistance from local white organizations.
This highlights the stinging isolation of a community that has to fight for it's own survival.