Acupuncture as Revolution: Suffering, Liberation, and Love

In November 1970, an amalgam of radical activists took over a section of the notorious Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx of New York. From that action an innovative drug detoxification program evolved. Public health historians have documented the role played by the Young Lords and the Black Panthers in direct-action healthcare reform, while in acupuncture circles Dr. Michael Smith is famed for developing a technique for drug detox. Hidden behind these better-known narratives is the history of a movement, led by African American and Latinx activists, that sought to employ acupuncture to transform the heroin addiction ravaging their communities and the capitalism, colonialism, and “chemical warfare” it saw as causative factors. Acupuncture as Revolution traces the history of revolutionary acupuncture in the United States, from its origins in the radicalism of the 1960s to its modern manifestation in the community acupuncture movement. The book compels the reader to look beyond popular conceptions of Western acupuncture while connecting the history of traditional Chinese medicine to a lineage of racial and health justice.