Lincoln Detox was a drug detoxification clinic in Lincoln Hospital. It was founded in 1970 in the

South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...

by the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, the

Republic of New Afrika The Republic of New Afrika (RNA), founded in 1968 as the Republic of New Africa (RNA), is a black nationalist organization and black separatist movement in the United States popularized by black militant groups. The larger New Afrika movement ...

, the

Young Lords The Young Lords, also known as the Young Lords Organization (YLO) or Young Lords Party (YLP), was a Chicago-based street gang that became a civil and human rights organization. The group aims to fight for neighborhood empowerment and self-det ...

, and Students for a Democratic Society. The clinic offered holistic drug rehabilitation, employing acupuncture,

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

education classes and community service.Burrough, B. (2015). ''Days of rage: America’s radical underground, the FBI, and the forgotten age of revolutionary violence.'' New York, NY, United States: The Penguin Press. In the courses, participants learned about their addiction in a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

context, exploring how their addiction harmed themselves, their family and their community. Administrators believed that drug addiction was "a scheme concocted by a white government to oppress blacks" and that revolutionary communism was the best cure. The clinic received about a million dollars in state and local funding. Lincoln Detox cost the county four times more per patient than comparable New York City clinics, but treated only half as many patients. It also utilized excess medical supplies by supporting further community health efforts through the

Black Liberation Army The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was a far-left, black nationalist, underground Black Power revolutionary paramilitary organization that operated in the United States from 1970 to 1981. Composed of former Black Panthers (BPP) and Republic of Ne ...

. Acupuncture was introduced by Richard Taft, a graduate of

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...

, in 1974. Mutulu Shakur worked at the clinic for years before being forced underground and becoming an

FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives is a most wanted list maintained by the United States's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The list arose from a conversation held in late 1949 between J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, and William Kin ...

. In 1976, NYC's

Health and Hospitals Corporation NYC Health + Hospitals, officially the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), operates the public hospitals and clinics in New York City as a public benefit corporation. , HHC is the largest municipal healthcare system in the Uni ...

discovered one million dollars in unsubstantiated payroll. An auditor's visit found that only 50% of staff on duty were actually present and a doctor overdosed and died inside the clinic, although clinic personnel suspect he was murdered, either by police or the National Caucus of Labor Committees of Lyndon LaRouche. The clinic was finally shut down by Ed Koch and Lincoln Hospital on November 27, 1978.

Sources

* Churchill, Ward Vander Wall. ''The COINTELPRO Papers: documents from the FBI's secret wars against dissent. '' 2002. p. 309.

References

{{US-hist-stub Far-left politics in the United States Health activism Mott Haven, Bronx Healthcare in New York City NYC Health + Hospitals Clinics in New York City