The G.V. Sonny Montgomery Veterans Administration (VA) Medical Center (adjacent to UMMC)

The G.V. Sonny Montgomery VA Medical Center is located in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. This establishment provides care to the 125,000 veterans that live in the area. It offers veterans a wide range of services including care for substance abuse, PTSD, and mental health care. The VA Medical Center holds a great deal of historical significance. First, the VA witnessed an effort to resist racial integration of medical institutions. The plans for construction of a new VA hospital to replace the decrepit Jackson VA (the former Foster General Hospital built in 1943) began in the 1950s in the Jim Crow Era South. This sparked controversy because in order to receive federal funding needed for construction and, once built, research within it, the facility would have to be integrated. Second, the hospital is also significant due to its name sake, Sonny Montgomery, who is responsible for many advancements for the veteran community. This establishment is an important landmark of Mississippi history as it represents the struggle of African Americans and veterans within healthcare. A little over a mile away from the VA Medical Center is the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Physical separation of the VA hospital from the University of Mississippi hospital resulted from actions by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an organization created by the Mississippi State Legislature following the 1954 Brown vs. Board decision. The Commission's purpose was to uphold racial segregation and resist federal activity in the state. The Sovereignty Commission had significant power; the governor served as chair, the senate president as vice-chair. Together with the state attorney general and house speaker, they directed a network of informants, detectives, and spies (Smith, 2005; Katagiri, 2001). Mississippi’s VA hospital was federal property and, like all such institutions, had been racially desegregated in 1948 by President Truman’s executive order, but beginning in 1956, the Sovereignty Commission fought integration, including continued integration in Mississippi's VA hospital. Ultimately, the Commission failed at re-segregating the new VA hospital, but succeeded in keeping it physically separate from the University of Mississippi hospital, which remained racially segregated until 1965. Today the VA continues to provide healthcare to the state's veterans.

The G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery VA Medical Center, located in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, holds a great deal of historical significance. First, the VA witnessed an effort to resist racial integration of medical institutions. The plans for construction of a new VA hospital to replace the decrepit Jackson VA (the former Foster General Hospital, originally built in 1943) began in the 1950s in the Jim Crow South. The proposed new hospital sparked controversy because in order to receive federal funding needed for construction and, once built, employment and research within it, the facility would have to be integrated. Second, the hospital is also significant due to its namesake, Sonny Montgomery, who is responsible for many advancements for the veteran community. This establishment is an important landmark of Mississippi history as it represents the struggle of African Americans and veterans within healthcare.

An important piece of information to note regarding the VA Hospital in Jackson is its namesake, Sonny Montgomery. Sonny Montgomery was a Mississippi native from Meridian who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1967 to1997. Montgomery served as a lieutenant during World War II and joined the National Guard and was sent to Korea in 1951. In May, 1961, his National Guard unit escorted a group of Freedom Riders from the Alabama border to Jackson, Mississippi. In 1981, Montgomery was made the chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee and he then focused his efforts on the GI Bill, which was intended to improve the recruitment and retention of army personnel by providing assistance for the education of soldiers on active duty, members of the National Guard, and the reserves. This bill was passed in 1984 and named the Educational Assistance Act of 1984, however, it is more commonly referred as the Montgomery GI Bill, due to his great efforts in the creation of the bill. After retiring from Congress in 1997, Congress voted to name the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Jackson the “G.V. Sonny Montgomery VA Medical Center” as a way to honor him for his work. In 2005, Montgomery was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, with whom he had a close relationship. Because of his military service to our country and his role in government, he is referred to by many as “Mr. Veteran” (Zwiers, 2018). 

The history of Mississippi’s VA hospital took shape in the context of racism that played a part in many aspects of the state’s history, including that of the healthcare system. While segregation was apparent throughout the South during the Jim Crow Era, Mississippi and South Carolina were the only two states that had specific laws that required general segregation of hospitals. The hardships that African Americans faced within the healthcare system in Mississippi have been described by one scholar as follows: “If the same care were available to Negroes in Mississippi and other southern states as in Minnesota and other northern states, Negro morbidity and mortality could be sharply reduced. Factors responsible for this difference are poverty, lack of Negro doctors and of doctors for Negroes and the exclusion of Negroes from first-class ‘white’ hospitals” (Charatz-Litt 1992, 720). This struggle for African Americans was further intensified due to the generally ailing healthcare system in the rural, poor state. The poor economic conditions in the South caused access to hospitals to be limited or nonexistent in some areas (Charatz-Litt 1992).

Such racial issues regarding the healthcare of the African Americans affected the veteran population after World War I. African American veterans in the South were subjected to neglect or were forced to seek medical care at significantly inferior hospitals. This resulted in the Treasury Department's 1921 decision to create a hospital to care exclusively for African American veterans. While many southern communities were outraged by this decision and refused to allow the facility to be built in their area, it was eventually decided that the institution would be located in Tuskegee, Alabama (Daniel 1970, 368). In 1948, President Truman issued executive orders ending both racial discrimination in all federal employment and segregation of all armed services. The orders mandated desegregation of VA hospitals. This was not perceived favorably by white southerners who opposed integration (Smith 2005). Many Mississippians were torn between wanting a much-needed new VA hospital and wanting to maintain racially segregated medical facilities.

Opened in 1943 as Foster General Hospital, then renamed the Jackson VA Hospital after World War II, Jackson VA Hospital was in terrible condition by the 1950s, described as “old, overcrowded, and badly in need of replacement.” In response, the legislature passed a bill in 1954 in which it would donate state land extending from the UMMC hospital and medical school campus and $15 million in federal funds for the construction of a new VA facility. However, this was under the condition that this facility would be desegregated. The two hospitals would exist in close proximity or perhaps joined. For state leaders, this pitted maintenance of racial segregation against care for the state's large veteran population. Governor Johnson publicly stated that he was opposed to integration as it threatened the “southern way of life,” but he would rather have the funding to build a new hospital than have to deny veterans medical care. Veteran groups even spoke out on the issues saying that “we need it, it is not ‘real’ desegregation because patients will have a separate room or cubicle and that we have not sold out” (Smith 2005).

Unlike the VA hospital, UMMC had the authority to enforce segregation within its medical school and hospital, which it did through1965. Prior to 1940, hospitals' medical researchers were supported mostly by private funding. This began to change during the 1950s as federal support of medical school research increased, meaning that in order to obtain and keep federal dollars, medical researchers would have to integrate their establishments. Racist concerns flared among Mississippians who felt that when providing medical treatment, a patient’s race was more of an issue than insurance or income status. We can see this in the actions of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. After receiving several complaints regarding African American nurses’ presence together with whites in the segregated UMMC hospital, the Sovereignty Commission sent a member to investigate. He reported: “Although the white patients are mostly charity patients, they should not have to be subjected to constant association in the corridors with Negroes, even though they are not able to pay their hospital expenses. It is bound to be humiliating and embarrassing to them, regardless of their financial status” (Smith 2005).

A compromise of sorts was reached in a decision to keep the new VA hospital separate from the UMMC hospital. Construction of the new VA hospital began in 1960 and it opened in 1962. Physical separation of the VA hospital from the University of Mississippi hospital resulted largely from actions by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an organization created by the Mississippi State Legislature following the 1954 Brown vs. Board decision. The Commission's purpose was to uphold racial segregation and resist federal activity in the state. The Sovereignty Commission had significant power; the governor served as chair, the senate president as vice-chair. Together with the state attorney general and house speaker, they directed a network of informants, detectives, and spies (Smith, 2005; Katagiri, 2001). Mississippi’s proposed new VA hospital would be federal property and, like all such institutions, racially desegregated after Truman’s 1948 executive order.  Beginning in 1956, the Sovereignty Commission had fought integration, including continued integration in Mississippi's VA hospital. Ultimately, the Commission failed at re-segregating the new VA hospital, but succeeded in keeping it physically separate from the University of Mississippi hospital, which remained racially segregated until 1965.

Many Jackson residents may not be aware of how historically significant the G.V. Sonny Montgomery VA Medical Center truly is. Its history of continued integration in the face of segregationist pressure made the hospital successful. Today it continues to provide healthcare to veterans of all races.

Charatz-Litt, Cynthia. "A Chronicle of Racism: The Effects of the White Medical Community on Black Health." Journal of the National Medical Association 84, no. 8 (1992): 717-25.

Daniel, Pete. “Black Power in the 1920s: The Case of Tuskegee Veterans Hospital.” The Journal of Southern History36, no. 3 (1970): 368–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/2206200. 

Katagiri, Y. The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and State Rights. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.

Smith, David Barton. "The Politics of Racial Disparities: Desegregating the Hospitals in Jackson, Mississippi." The Milbank Quarterly 83, no. 2 (2005): 247-269.

Zwiers, Maarten . “Montgomery, Sonny.” Mississippi Encyclopedia. Center for Study of Southern Culture, April 14, 2018. https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/sonny-montgomery/.