Tuskegee Veterans Administration Medical Center

Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage
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Location	Tuskegee, Alabama
Coordinates	32°26′43″N 85°42′47″W / 32.44528°N 85.71306°W / 32.44528; -85.71306
Built	1923 (1923)
NRHP reference No.	12000140[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	March 19, 2012
Designated ARLH	April 14, 1992[2]

The Tuskegee Veterans Administration Medical Center began in 1923 as an old soldiers' home in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was originally called the Tuskegee Home, part of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers system.^[3]

The home-hospital, eventually 27 buildings, was developed next to the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute campus (now Tuskegee University) on 464 acres (188 ha), with 300 acres of the property donated by the institute.

Its medical purpose was to provide long-term care for the 300,000 African-American veterans in the segregated South from World War I; such care was often denied or neglected at other veterans' hospitals and old soldiers' homes. Medical care of veterans after the war was one of a number of issues complicated by race; the government was struggling to get veterans employed, to develop programs for those who were disabled, as well as to treat those needing medical treatment. Having served their country, veterans wanted the federal government to intercede as they tried to re-enter society.

In 1930 three agencies were combined as the Veterans Administration, and the hospital center was put under its authority. Since 1997 the hospital complex has been part of the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System; it is known as the East Campus of its four sites in Alabama and Georgia.