The Yellow Fever Epidemic in Philadelphia and Racial Tension

Racial Tension in Fever

With the racial tension as high as it was in Philadelphia at the time of the Fever, one would think that any common enemy or goal would bring everybody together. However, when the illness known as the Fever hit the city, prejudice rose to different heights.

Prejudice and racism is bad enough as it is. However, the citizens of Philadelphia were making it look like they wanted the blacks and immigrants to come back into the city. They told the blacks that they could come back to the city because they had immunity to the disease, when in actuality they only needed the blacks and immigrants to act as caretakers for the white upper class citizens.

They forced the blacks and immigrants out of their homes, where they were loved by their families and friends, and into nursing the white residents of Philadelphia. The blacks and immigrants went from a place that they truly loved and that truly loved them back to a place where they were forced to love those whom they had hated just weeks before. In other words, the blacks were forced into forming an artificial love for their enemies. This is a new level of prejudice. This type of racism is worse than the original, simpler form of racism that existed in Philadelphia before the Fever broke out.

The illness was called the Yellow Fever Epidemic. Although it seemed like a terrible thing, it was actually like a godsend, in a very crude manner, to bring the many different races of Philadelphia together. When the fatal epidemic hit the white people of Philadelphia, the blacks and other immigrants who were shut out were given immunity, or so they were told, and the chance to return back to the city. As Wideman wrote, “I was commandeered to rise and go forth to the general task of saving the city, forced to leave this neighborhood where my skills were sorely needed. I nursed those who hated me, deserted the ones I loved, who loved me.” This is said by a black doctor named Dr. Rush, who is speaking of his extreme discomfort in leaving his community where he knows he is needed and appreciated to go and help a city full of people that will pretend to like him, so that in turn he will he try to save them. The people who were shunned out of the city were now returning to essentially save the city of Philadelphia.