Area group, students restoring historic site

Centers for Disease Control Tuskegee Syphilis Study participants

It has been more than 30 years, and the gloomy façade still evokes grim feelings for the few who share the memory of what used to be. The church, located on a dirt road west of Auburn, boasts a fresh coat of white paint that fades into splintered gray wood as one's eyes peer towards the back.

The trees, the dirt road and the patchy grass are like a stage set, as if built in order to represent the idyllic old-time South some like to remember. Nearby is a semi-restored, three-room school surrounded by disused construction equipment, a reminder of the present day.

But there is a dark past hidden amidst these four acres, and only a select few have been able to tell this poignant tale of betrayal, abuse and redemption. This is Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, located on a dirt road off Highway 81, the road between Notasulga and Tuskegee.

This is the church where Eunice Rivers, Macon County's African-American public health nurse, recruited participants in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Now, the church, school and adjacent cemetery are being restored in an effort spearheaded by a descendant of three participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and aided by architecture students from Auburn and Tuskegee universities.

Elizabeth Sims is a grant and contract administrator at Auburn University. Her great grandfather, Osborn Pollard, participated in the study. So did both her grandfathers. Alex Ware was a member of the control group. Frank Cooper, a carpenter and Notasulga resident, also participated.

Sims said Cooper experienced an array of complications because of syphilis and eventually went blind. Two of his children were born with mental problems—a common result when the parent has the disease.

In 2002, Sims established the Shiloh Community Restoration Foundation Inc. in response to what she described as "a personal issue held close to the heart."

The non-profit foundation has enlisted the aid of community leaders, alumni and faculty from Auburn and Tuskegee universities. The foundation's objective is to "promote civic and community pride and educate the people about our community's history and heritage."

An estimated $70,000 has been raised since the foundation's establishment, with a majority of the profits benefiting the restoration of the Rosenwald School, next to the church, which in 2002 was placed on a list of endangered places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The story begins some 70 years ago in the small town of Notasulga, straddling the border between Macon and Lee counties a few miles west of Auburn. This is where what has been described as one of history's most horrendous examples of research took place.

Intended to test the effects of untreated syphilis in the tertiary stage, the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male—the longest running non-therapeutic research study in American history directly involving African-Americans—was started in 1932 by the venereal disease branch of the U.S. Public Health Service. The study commenced only a few years before the start of the infamous Josef Mengele's similar experiments on Holocaust victims in 1940s Germany.

What separates this experiment from other human-study atrocities?

"There were other experiments, but it is different, partly because of the racism and the doctor's abuse of people who trusted them and expected them to be caring, that it becomes so important to understand," says Dr. Susan Reverby, professor of Women's Studies at Wellesly College and author of the book, "Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study."

Although not on the foundation's board, Reverby is a supporter and attends meetings. She was a member of the committee that lobbied former President Bill Clinton to seek an apology for the study, and has conducted extensive research on the topic. She says she believes this story needs to be told again and again because it is a milestone in history.

"It has lived so long after 1972. I think that it is important for people to really know what happened and to understand how it's a metaphor for American life," she says. "We have to talk about it and make it more of a healing process. It's a major event in American history and it needs to be discussed."

Not until the early 20th century was an effective treatment for syphilis developed. Before this, remedies such as Guaiacum—resin from the lignum vitae tree—along with vaporized mercury and the antibiotics Salvarsan and Neosalvarson were used to treat the debilitating disease. Those remedies proved to be ineffectual and even hazardous to the health of those who used them.

Penicillin had been developed as a cure, but the doctors in the Tuskegee study had no intention of administering any kind of medicine as treatment to the men, in part because the participants were not informed about the nature of their disease. Instead, doctors simply told them they had "bad blood" and could receive free healthcare, food and a burial if they participated in the study.

Reverby says she believes the study was a severe case of human error and irresponsibility and not originally intended to harm the men.

"I don't think they were out to get people," she says. "Their racism is clear, but they (doctors) are no better or worse than others at this point in time. The black doctors and Nurse Rivers go along with this because they think in the end it might show a certain amount of treatment isn't needed, and so it's a complicated medical story."

Reverby says it is easier to tell the story in simple black and white, without shades of gray, making the men entirely victims.

"I think they are much more than that," she says. "They weren't just the victims of the public health service. Some of them were treated that way for the illness; some of them got the treatment. It's just a more complicated story."

At the beginning of the study, the first participants were recruited by Eunice Rivers, the county's public health nurse. Rivers, with her signature hair bond, black-rimmed glasses and thick-heeled shoes, was a familiar fixture in the county and was able to establish rapport with its residents. She recruited the men from nearby Notasulga's Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church.

Organized in 1870, the church was the final product of three previous Baptists churches. And it was at Shiloh, in 1997, where Civil Rights attorney Fred Gray demanded an apology on behalf of the surviving participants and their successors.

Land donated by the church was used to build the Rosenwald School on the property. The Rosenwald Schools were a result of the united efforts of Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, former CEO of Sears and Roebuck.

Both men took an interest in African-American education, and in 1917 Rosenwald established the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, which raised millions of dollars for educational institutions across the South and established more than 5,000 schools. The Shiloh-Rosenwald School was one of the first built and is the only remaining Rosenwald School in Macon County.

Barbara Mahone, executive director of human resources for global product development at General Motors in Michigan, is a former student at the Rosenwald School and is involved in the restoration effort.

Mahone recalls growing up in the farming community and making the four-mile trek to school every day. She says school officials actually understood the concept of "no child left behind." They sought the potential hidden in every child, encouraging them to have aspirations and think big.

"Even though we were in that one little schoolhouse in a very rural area, they would talk about other places in the world so we could visualize what the possibilities were," Mahone recalls. "They would give us lots of hugs and tell us how special we were. Mrs. Humphrey came all the way from Montgomery to teach. She obviously had a lot of dedication to the kids."

Because American laws demand separation of church and state, Shiloh Baptist Church cannot receive funds from the government until it is classified as a National Historic Landmark. That's why the Shiloh Community Restoration Foundation is currently focusing its efforts on restoring the school.

The foundation is also trying to preserve Shiloh Cemetery, the burial site for Shiloh Baptist Church and for most of the Macon County participants in the syphilis study.

"It's essential for us to preserve the past, especially the positive educational experience," Mahone said. "Think about what the one-room schoolhouse provided: an opportunity for kids to understand the value of education and at the same time, having very committed teachers."

To date, the foundation has succeeded in having the church, the school and the cemetery all placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage. And with the help of faculty at Middle Tennessee University, they are in the process of transitioning the sites into National Landmarks.

In a collaborative effort, Auburn University's Design Build Masters Program and Tuskegee University's School of Architecture are aiding the foundation by providing cost estimates, creating site plans for the school's renovation and using the project as a teaching tool for their architecture students, who volunteer their time to reduce construction costs.

Sims' family helped build Shiloh Baptist Church, and she has been a member since the age of 9. She attended the Rosenwald School and has family buried in the cemetery. Her passion to preserve a history not only limited to her experience, but to American history, is astounding.

The project is a community effort operated by a group of passionate individuals whose common goal is to immortalize a story that affected more than 600 men over a 40-year span.

The aftermath has had an everlasting effect on everyone involved. And with the efforts of the Shiloh Restoration Community Foundation, its legacy can be preserved and its story can be told.

As Sims simply puts it, "Whether it's good or bad, people need to know."