Documentary highlights a jewel in history

"Jewel" was first introduced to the Berkeley public at a showing Aug. 23 by the University of California's Public Health Department as part of the university's program of community relations. Although fascinating enough from the viewpoint of the largely unknown black medical history alone, the film speaks to many other aspects of the African-American experience. Next Tuesday is the only Bay Area showing presently scheduled.

The 53 minute film, backed by a soul-stunning soundtrack, utilizes a wealth of archival film footage, and is edited from over 100 hours of interviews with black physicians and academicians; it may well be the first pictorial documentation of a segregated black medical institution.

Perhaps surprisingly, much of the story is of triumph, of a 600 plus bed hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, which established a national reputation for superior medical care and physician education. One surgeon who interned there says: "When I was through, I knew I had simply the best education possible."

Another doctor sums it up: "We knew we had to be better than the whites."

The impressive facility was named for the young black lawyer and activist who is credited with much of the political work and fundraising which made the hospital possible. In a remarkable political coup, the city of St. Louis put up $1.3 million toward the hospital and the Roosevelt Administration funded another $2 million. In a crime which is still unsolved, Homer G. Phillips was murdered six years before the hospital opened in 1937.

An extremely large, beautiful building, Homer G., (as it's still called by the people who knew it as an important part of their world), ironically enough, flourished during segregation. It was shut down in 1979 despite vehement protests from the local African-American community.

Protesters barricaded themselves in the hospital for 17 days before the facility closed and maintained efforts to have it reopened for seven more years.

Godwin is a nurse, an idealist, an activist, someone who sees an issue and does something about it; she has a head full of ringlets and a warm, approachable manner. She cares a lot about public health and she also cares a lot about African-American history.

"There are so many elements of our history that are not known," she says, with all the fervor of a dedicated teacher.

It is not by chance that the film's narrative begins with an African-American doctor's assertion that "The history of our people in this country must be told over and over again, so that our young people can have something to grab onto."

But Godwin is motivated as much by her concern for what she sees as a public health crisis for the indigent in general as she is by her dedication to issues affecting only African-Americans. Asked which is her highest priority: African-American history, medical history or what she describes as a decline in health services to all uninsured Americans, Godwin responds "All of the above."

Godwin, a single mother, wasn't looking for something to fill her time twenty some years ago when a friend who had received her own nurse's training at Homer G. shared her grief at the closing of the hospital. Godwin's attention was originally caught by the idea of just getting out the story of a nurse who is believed to have originated several major advances in surgical techniques: Homer G.'s Chief of Surgical Services, Ida B.Northcross, M.A.

Over a period of years, Godwin, a San Francisco native, steeped herself in black medical history and made numerous out-of-state trips to research the Northcross' story in the archives of Washington and St. Louis Universities. She found the history of the hospital itself, materials which she felt dictated the form of a film documentary. With absolutely zero film-making experience and nothing but a nurse's salary to face production costs, Godwin calmly set out to create the film.

Among numerous others, the film won the Black Filmmakers Award in 1997 and the CINDY International Cinema and Industry Award. He chose to work with Godwin from the many alternatives offered to him after the awards because "She had a genuine story to tell."