401Z Summer 2026 Fall for the Book: The Price of Exclusion

Why are Black doctors and their patients undervalued? What factors in America’s health system have paved the way for this to happen? Award-winning journalist Nicole Carr investigates the long history of medical racism in her first book, The Price of Exclusion: The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation. Beginning with her great-grandfather, a Jamaican-born physician, Carr uses vivid storytelling and meticulous research to examine the systematic disempowerment of Black doctors through the use of segregation and impassable roadblocks, thus erasing contributions of Black doctors to the medical field, and costing lives.

Nicole Carr is a journalist and visiting assistant professor at Morehouse College. She teaches journalism and Black press history. Carr's investigations have earned multiple Emmys, a Sidney award, and "must-read" long-form narrative citations. Her work centers race, democracy, and education—from the Big Lie to parental rights and anti-DEI movements. Carr's essay The Black press democratized America won the 2025 American Society for Journalists and Authors Op-ed award. Her first book, The Price of Exclusion: The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation, is an ancestral journey examining racism, education, and the plight of Black physicians.