Who Was Henrietta Lacks?
As I sat down in an empty conference room with attorney Ben Crump, nerves took over me while I opened my sparse notes and realized I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Why was Ben, who represents the family of George Floyd among others (most currently representing the family of the 9-year-old boy named Ezra Blount, who sustained injuries at the Astroworld festival and soon after passed away), agreeing to be interviewed by me, an inexperienced college student? Nepotism, of course. He works with my mom, who asked him for the favor which he so graciously agreed to. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I deserved the opportunity.
Palmer Boothe
When we started talking, I forgot about my anxiety (for the most part) because Ben was so clearly engaged and passionate.
The conversation was not long -- lasting only about forty-five minutes, since Ben had brought Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, with him and the two had a plane to catch and an interview to do. That day was George Floyd’s 48th birthday.
“It’s not a mistake, it’s a pattern,” Philonise said of his brother’s murder, adding that he and his family just want the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to be passed. I was in awe of him, and the courage it must take for him to continuously speak on something so painful because of the impact his words have. Philonise was so kind to me, on a day that must have been one huge reminder of the brother he had lost. He told me I reminded him of Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds, one of my all-time favorite TV show characters. It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received so I just had to include it in this article.
When I look through my notes, the tail end of the interview stands out most to me. A current case Ben is pursuing involves representing the family of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells have contributed to countless scientific discoveries, but her story is relatively unknown.
“Everybody in the world should know her name,” Ben said.
Ben went on to explain that in 1951, an intelligent young Black woman had cancer and was taken to John Hopkins. The doctors there said they were treating her, but in Ben’s words, history revealed the truth.
They never really treated Henrietta Lacks’s cancer.
Instead, they took her cells without her permission or consent in the effort to figure out if a cell could survive outside the human body, and found that not only did Henrietta’s cells survive, but they regenerated -- which they continue to do today. In her vulnerable state, Henrietta was taken advantage of by white male doctors who wanted to use her unique cells without her knowledge -- an example of medical racism.
“They used Black people as lab rats,” Ben said, as he detailed other examples of the rampant medical racism that was happening at that time. “They had a rumor: don’t walk past John Hopkins at night because they said they would steal you and do these experiments.”
There is no version of this kind of racism that isn’t harmful and frankly dangerous for Black people. Ben told me about the Black soldiers in World War II who were given faulty gas masks and sent into gas chambers as experiments, so they could study the effects of the gas chamber on the human body.
“When the soldiers complained, and there were about 400 or 500 of them, they court-marshalled and imprisoned them,” Ben added.
Henrietta’s cells were stolen from her without a cent of compensation; they violated her and treated her like a test subject rather than a person. She died not long after checking into Johns Hopkins. And Henrietta’s cells, despite this, went on to be a part of amazing things: her cells were used to develop the polio and COVID-19 vaccines, helped develop IVF treatment, and they’ve even been to space so scientists could see if human cells could survive on Mars. They have been used so much they could circle the world three times, Ben explained.
“It is a very true statement to say that her cells are the cornerstone of modern medicine,” Ben said, “and every medical advancement in the last 70 years can be attributed to studying her genetic makeup.”
It’s frustrating that something that has done so much good is darkened by the circumstance in which it was acquired. Let’s be honest, it’s a common thing in America - our freaking country was built by slave owners. A lot of people feel more comfortable forgetting the past and focusing only on the good -- but not me, and hopefully not you.
“Do right by Henrietta Lacks,” Ben said.
Ben Crump is an American attorney and author of Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People. He specializes in personal injury, wrongful death and civil rights cases and is the founder and president of Ben Crump Law in Tallahassee, Florida. Some of Ben’s work includes representing the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, as well as residents of Flint Michigan that had been poisoned by the water there.