Rebecca Skloot Journalist, Teacher, Author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

July 14, 2011

State Historical Highway Marker Honoring Henrietta Lacks To Be Dedicated

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A new state historical highway marker honoring Henrietta Lacks will be dedicated by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources on July 29, at 11 a.m., near her childhood home in Clover, a rural community in Halifax County. The dedication ceremony will be at St. Matthew Baptist Church in Clover. The Honorable William A. Hazel Jr., Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources, will provide keynote remarks.

RICHMOND, VA – An historical highway marker honoring Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose legacy to medical science was the first line of “immortal” human cells, will be dedicated by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources later this month near her childhood home in Clover, a rural community in Halifax County.

Lacks, born in Roanoke in 1920, was living in Baltimore, Maryland in 1951 when a tissue sample from a cervical tumor she had was removed, without her knowledge or consent, for medical research by a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Once cultured in the laboratory, her cells astonished scientists by their unique ability to survive and reproduce, eventually leading to major advances in medicine during the last 60 years through research made possible by the “HeLa” line, “the ‘gold standard’ of cell lines,” as the new
highway marker reads.

The “Henrietta Lacks” marker will be dedicated at 11 a.m., on Friday, July 29, at St. Matthew Baptist Church, located at 1164 Clover Road, in Clover. Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel will provide keynote remarks during the ceremony. Others participating in the event will be Kathleen S. Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources; Clarice Buster, of the NAACP, Halifax County Chapter; Rev. Frank E. Coleman, pastor of the First Baptist Church in South Boston, and Rev. Alfred L. Chandler of St. Matthew Baptist Church, which is hosting the event.

Guests of honor at the ceremony will include some of Henrietta Lacks’ children and grandchildren from Baltimore and elsewhere in the country. A public reception in the church’s fellowship hall will be hosted by the Department of Historic Resources after the ceremony.

Since 1951, the year Lacks died of cancer, HeLa cells have been crucial to important research resulting in “the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, [and] in vitro fertilization,” writes Rebecca Skloot, author of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” a book published in 2010.

The extent of their use in medical research is indicated by Skloot, who writes in summarizing the calculations of one scientist, that “if you could lay all HeLa cells ever grown end-to-end, they’d wrap around the Earth at least three times, spanning more than 350 million feet.”

Although HeLa cells are responsible for great advances in medicine, the taking of the original tissue sample without Lacks’ consent — during an era of Jim Crow segregation when medical experimentation on African Americans was covertly practiced — and subsequent developments raise important ethical issues. For instance, while many have profited from the multi-million dollar industry resulting from the packaging and sale of the HeLa cells, Henrietta’s family members never benefitted financially from them.

Skloot’s critically-acclaimed book chronicles the Lacks family’s difficult and painful struggle to learn more about the cells after being informed in the 1970s of the HeLa line’s existence, 20 years after Henrietta’s death. At the heart of that story are many legal and ethical questions of growing importance today concerning what rights we have as individuals over our own biological material.

“The story of Henrietta Lacks and the development of the first ‘immortal’ cell line encapsulates so many issues,” said Secretary Hazel. “It touches race, education, poverty, and medical ethics, and demonstrates not only how much progress has been made but how difficult these questions are. The good news here is that her unknowing contribution has helped many people around the world,” he added.

The Henrietta Lacks marker was approved by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources at its September 2010 board meeting. It was sponsored by the department as part of a decade-long program to create and encourage new markers that highlight important events, people, and places in the history of African Americans, women, and Virginia Indians that have contributed to Virginia and the nation’s history.

“The Lacks Family thanks the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and all who took part in creating the historical highway marker to honor Henrietta Lacks,” said Jeri Lacks Whye, on behalf of the family. “This marker will be another outlet for educating people about a phenomenal African American woman who touches the lives of many in astonishing ways,” added Whye, who is the daughter of Henrietta Lack’s son, Sonny Lacks.

Virginia’s historical highway marker program, which began in 1927 with the installation of the first markers along U.S. Route 1, is considered the oldest such program in the nation. Currently there are more than 2,200 official state markers, most of which are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, a key partner with the Department of Historic Resources in the historical marker program.

Marker Text:

Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951)
Born in Roanoke on 1 Aug. 1920, Henrietta Pleasant lived here with relatives after her mother’s 1924 death. She married David Lacks in 1941 and, like many other African Americans, moved to Baltimore, Md. for wartime employment. She died of cervical cancer on 4 Oct. 1951. Cell tissue was removed without permission (as usual then) for medical research. Her cells multiplied and survived at an extraordinarily high rate, and are renowned worldwide as the “HeLa line,” the “gold standard” of cell lines. Jonas Salk developed his polio vaccine with them. Henrietta Lacks, who in death saved countless lives, is buried nearby.

For a PDF of this press release, visit the Virginia Department of Human Resources website.

July 7, 2011

The Sun Chronicle Calls The Immortal Life “Deeply Personal and Profoundly Universal”

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“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book at once deeply personal and profoundly universal,” writes Kathy Hickman in her monthly column, The Reading Room, in The Sun Chronicle. “It deftly combines three story strains: medical science, Henrietta Lacks’ family history and the author’s own adventures in writing the book. In the end, she touches the reader’s mind, emotions and soul with so much passion that you, too, want to ‘tell stories’ on dead folks like Henrietta Lacks, for all the world to know.”

July 5, 2011

Time Magazine Reports that Sapphire Is Reading The Immortal Life

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Time magazine’s Pack Your (Book) Bag feature (“the best pages to turn this summer, from 23 authors we admire”) reports that bestselling novelist Sapphire (author of Push, which was turned into the Academy Award-winning film Precious) is reading The Immortal Life.

June 20, 2011

HeLa 4 Life Bike-a-Thon HeLa Ryders Thank Rebecca Skloot

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On May 14, 2011, children of Roanoke, VA (Henrietta Lacks’s hometown) celebrated “Henrietta Lacks Day” and participated in a HeLa 4 Life Bike-a-Thon fundraiser at the Forest Park Baptist Church to benefit the Henrietta Lacks Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Read the full story here.

The HeLa Ryders sent these sweet thank-you notes. We post them here, with our thanks for everything the Ryders have done for the Henrietta Lacks Foundation.

June 19, 2011

Best of Queens Library Summer Reading Selects The Immortal Life

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The Queens Gazette reports that The Immortal Life was chosen for the Best of Queens Library Summer Reading program.

You’ve probably heard a lot of hype about this book, and it’s all true. An uneducated black woman dies young and poor of cervical cancer, but her cells are kept alive and studied by scientists. Her cells lead to countless medical breakthroughs, but the Lacks family knows nothing about it. O, the Oprah Magazine, selected is as one of their Top Ten Books of 200 and called it a “multilayered narrative of race, class, and family.” The story was used for an episode of Law and Order and is being developed for an HBO special.

Learn about other community reads and FYE programs that are reading The Immortal Life.

June 18, 2011

Sacramento Bee Recommends The Immortal Life in Summer Reading Roundup

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The Sacramento Bee included The Immortal Life in its Summer Reading Roundup, recommending it as one of the best non-fiction reads for summer.

June 17, 2011

Columbia, MO Selects The Immortal Life for ‘One Read’ Program

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“Although her grave is unmarked, and she was called by the wrong name for years, [Henrietta Lacks's] story could bring readers together in Columbia this summer,” reports the Columbia Missourian.

[photo credit: Columbia Missourian. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on display for Columbia's One Read program at the MU Bookstore.]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot has taken the win as the book of choice for the 10th annual One Read program, coordinated by Daniel Boone Regional Library. Sally Abromovich, public services librarian, called the nonfiction novel a “fascinating read” that touches on current bioethical issues.

Learn about other community reads and FYE programs that are reading The Immortal Life.

June 16, 2011

Connecticut College Student Praises The Immortal Life

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“If there ever was a piece of scholarship that encapsulated the interdisciplinary ideals and methods of American Studies,” writes Connecticut College student Claire Cafritz, “Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks would be it.”

The poignant story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cervical cells created the first immortal cell line, provides a revealing account of the ways in which prevailing issues of race and class have shaped, and continue to influence, the various institutions that govern American society. Skloot’s efforts to reveal the human story behind one of the most significant discoveries in the history of medicine provides invaluable insight into many of the issues and disciplines that are integral to understanding American studies.

Learn about other community reads and FYE programs that are reading The Immortal Life.

June 15, 2011

Students Respond to The Immortal Life in AAC&U Magazine

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“Unlike the stereotypical reading assignment that too often catalyzes students to bond over mutual dislike,” writes Connecticut College student Jesse Neikrie in the Association of American Colleges and Universities magazine, “[The Immortal Life] appealed to people with diverse interests, including literature, science, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, and social justice.”

As Morgane Amat, a French-born first-year physics major and potential art and math double minor, explained, ‘I liked the biographical components combined with the scientific knowledge.’ Opinions about the book were as diverse as the first-year class, who used it as a tool to get to know each other. Inside and outside of classes as well as in student-and faculty-run discussions, which took place almost every other week during the first semester, students gathered to discuss the topics and dilemmas the book posed.
 
It has been more than six months since I first heard the name Henrietta Lacks. The person behind the name has now taken shape in my mind. Henrietta was a woman, a mother, a wife, and a cancer patient–in short, a human being who is too often remembered, if at all, as nothing more than an acronym. She is the source of the precious HeLa cells that defined modern medicine, an unsung hero who did not volunteer for the job. And now she is also at the heart of the introduction to my first year in college. Through Rebecca Skloot’s book, Henrietta Lacks has set a very high standard for what I hope my college experience will be like. So far, I have not been disappointed. My classmates and I will never forget the life, death and incredibly busy afterlife of Henrietta Lacks and her unique cells.

Learn about other community reads and FYE programs that are reading The Immortal Life.

June 14, 2011

Fan of The Immortal Life Donates Funds to Low-Income School

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“I’m so thrilled,” says Rebecca Skloot, “I just found out that Diana Kimball, a fan of The Immortal Life, recently donated funds in my honor via DonorsChoose.org for a low income school to get gel electrophoresis equipment for its science classroom. I just got a wonderful packet of thank you letters from the students – what a perfect and wonderful gift. Thank you, Diana, and everyone else who gave.”

For more information on how you can make a difference, visit DonorsChoose.org.