When Cathy Sampson opens the hospital, she makes a number of compromises. How do you feel about her choices?

When Cathy Sampson opens the hospital, she makes a number of compromises. How do you feel about her choices?

I felt she did what she could under the circumstances. You have to pick your battles. It's easy to look back and say what she should have done, but that's from a 2022 perspective.

Would she have succeeded without the compromises, doubtful. If her goal was to treat and heal she needed to accept the options she had. It might have felt like a failure but her compromises allowed her to do what she was driven to do.

I agree to keep the hospital up and running she had to make these compromised.

Libertie did not like the compromises, but I do not think Cathy had a choice. If she was going to be able to keep the hospital open to treat the blacks she had to decide to treat the whites as well. This is business.

I believe she made the best choice under the circumstances. Compromise isn’t always agreeable but It did get her to her ultimate goal of treating black women. Without the money from treating all the women in and outside the community she would have had to close the clinic Once she lost support of the womens group who were helping her with the funding, it’s really the only option she had to keep the clinic open. A hard choice but also a courageous choice. She took a chance that the white women would even come!

As others have noted, Cathy's decision to open the clinic to white women is a pragmatic one based on economic need. In doing so, she loses the fellowship of the women's group, and drives another wedge in how Libertie perceives her mother. Libertie sees that the clinic now continues the unfair practices of a racist society. Even worse, her mother fails to defend Libertie against the cruelty of the white women who won't let dark-skinned Libertie touch them.
Ironically, Cathy feels her decision is justified as the funds from the clinic pay for Libertie's education; but Libertie perceives being sent away to college as a form of banishment for wanting her mother to ask more of the world.

Cathy did what she had to do to keep the hospital. We cant look back with a 2022 lense.