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greetings and welcome to the talk with

History Podcast I am your host Scott

here with my wife and historian Jen

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[Music]

most of the world if not all of it has

been affected by the woman we are going

to talk about today

she's from a small town in Virginia and

before she passed away

she had no idea what kind of impact she

would have on modern day medicine but it

is because of an African-American woman

born into poverty and working a farm

with family A Woman by the name of

Henrietta Lacks that we have to thank

for so many medical Miracles so Jen why

don't you tell us about who we're

talking about today

well you mentioned her name Henrietta

Lacks yeah and

this was an amazing story to do for many

reasons but

I stumbled upon this story when HBO did

a movie about a book called The Immortal

Life of Henrietta Lacks and the book

came out in 2010 and the movie was made

with Oprah Winfrey playing Henrietta

lacks's daughter

that's right and it went through the

whole story of the family pretty much

discovering that their mother's cell

line was responsible for so much medical

research impact right and what that

meant for them and just kind of like

past traumas that they had had in their

life plus the trauma of the ethics of

the whole situation yeah that her mother

their mother never knew they never

really even knew so why don't you for

for The Listener who's never heard of

Henrietta Lacks and why don't you talk

about kind of what what that story was

because really

first off to set the stage you tell me

about Henry Henrietta Lacks right

because we do talk about a little bit of

the production side of things and I'm

like who the heck is this you're like oh

don't worry it's like she's buried in

her hometown is like in the middle of

Virginia three hours away I was like

sure let's do this let's drive three

hours away so that's kind of like that's

kind of where I was going with that is

watching that movie and then after we I

think I watched that movie while we were

in Pennsylvania okay and then we moved

here and I remembered she was from

Virginia and I wanted to find out more

about her and I looked her up and she's

from Clover Virginia yeah

before she moves to Baltimore Maryland

that's she grew up in Clover Virginia

she wasn't born there she was born in

Roanoke oh okay and they actually just

demolished the house before she was born

where she was brought she was brought

home too okay and she might have been

born in the house where I think she was

brought home to that house and they

actually people tried to save it it was

very old and yeah dilapidated but they

tried to to save it and they couldn't

save it but

living here in Virginia now looking up

Clover Virginia and I had said to you

let's go there and make a video about

her and her life and her impact and yeah

we drove out three hours to Clover so

what was what's the big draw like what

is her why don't you tell listeners what

her Legacy is because it's when I

learned about it I was like oh my God so

what's very interesting about Henry

lacks when you say what is the big draw

it's

most people don't know the big drug I

had I had zero she has a historic marker

but no one knew where her grave was and

we'll talk about that some more she

should be more well known than she is

and that's why that's what her family

wants to know yes you know like her her

family wants people to know more about

her so let me give you kind of a

background in the story of Henrietta

Lacks

lack's town is an ancestral Farm tobacco

area in uh for the lacks family and

Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta

Pleasant August 1st 1920 like I said in

Roanoke Virginia and she was born to

Eliza Pleasant and John Pleasant

her name changed sometime in her younger

years to Henrietta and she got the

nickname Henny

in 1924 when she was four her mother

dies giving birth to her 10th child

and her father is unable to care for all

the children alone so he moves the

family back to Clover Virginia where

they're from they're both from there

okay so that's where they have extended

family right and he moves back there to

because they have fiesta he has to

distribute his children yeah amongst his

family amongst his family to take care

of them because he can't do that yeah

what the ratio of one to ten for kids

that's I don't know if that's possible

sure and he has to work I'm sure yeah so

yeah so he has to go with his family

right and Henrietta ended up with her

mother's grandfather Thomas

um Thomas Henry lacks and it's a

two-story Log Cabin that was once a

slave Quarters on a plantation that had

been owned by henrietta's white

great-grandfather so you can unpack that

and his last name was lacks yeah so as

you can yeah you don't really connect

the dots for the viewers on the video

you don't tell them like uh this is what

happened you just say like well his last

name was lacks and he was her great

grandfather yes

um he was her great grandfather so

as most enslaved when they are freed

sometimes took their master's last name

oh okay in this instance I would say

they the last name was

more relational sure it was a little bit

more of both right yes yeah and that

also is not rare with enslaved

situations sometimes so Henrietta Lacks

is an example of that

and so she grows up on this tobacco farm

now if you watch the video we stand in

the tobacco farm area what we believe is

might have been theirs but it was it was

definitely tobacco farm we don't we

weren't sure if it was theirs but it was

that was an Old Farm I'm pretty sure it

took us out there the mark some yeah

some random GPS I mean we were literally

driving in my Forerunner like there was

barely a road it was kind of more of

dirt track and we stand out there and I

talk about Henrietta Lacks there so

tobacco farming is basically what is the

big

industry yeah yeah for for that area and

so that's what she does and kind of in

that sharecropper kind of idea right

where her family is now working the land

so she drops out of school in the sixth

grade and of course as you can imagine

it's probably segregated yeah right so

she has to probably walk farther away to

school and the family needs help at the

farm and money so she drops out and

helps support her family

they say she had hazel eyes a small way

size six shoe she's always wearing red

nail polish and a pleated skirt and the

few pictures that survive of her she

definitely looks like she

cares about

how she presents herself yeah I mean the

the picture that I found when I look her

up there's there's they the portrait I

think it looks like it was painted I'm

not sure so that was painted for the

National Gallery right and that's in the

Smithsonian the um yes and then and the

Smithsonian African-American history

right now they take they paint that

portrait off a photograph

of her yeah and the couple photographs

that do survive of her she is very well

presented like you can tell she really

cares about how she looks and that's

great you know good for her like she

just looks

good you know red nail polish pleated

skirt she keeps herself well put

together she cares about her how she

presents herself in 1935 when she's 14

she gives birth to her first child a son

so at that house where she lives with

her great-grandfather she also lives I

think with like her second cousin who

will become her husband so he's also

there I didn't realize they were like

distantly related yes okay and then in

1939 she gives birth to a daughter uh

her name is Elsie so she has two

children before she marries him David

lacks in 1941 so she has one child of 14

one child at 18 gets married at 20.

in Halifax County which is where Clover

is so in that county they get married

and it's later that year in 1941 that

they all moved to Baltimore Maryland and

they moved there for opportunity they

moved there to escape the racism this is

the beginning of the war

oh that's right this is right before

World War One started so I think they're

just trying to get away from

the lack of opportunity sure and there's

more opportunity up North so they moved

to Baltimore I think they have family

who had also moved there and said come

come here and there's more opportunity

here so that's where they go to

Baltimore Maryland and she has three

more children where they while they live

there

but it's there her last child is born in

November of 1950 and then in January she

goes to John Hopkins hospital because

that's one of the few places where

African Americans can go to be treated

it's still segregated it is a segregated

Hospital segregated waiting rooms but

she has her words are not in her womb

she thought it was her pregnancy right

she gives birth in November but then in

January the knot has not gone away so

she goes to John Hopkins University and

a doctor Dr Howard

John's takes a biopsy and

he takes a biopsy of off of a mass in

her cervix

and

the samples were given then to a doctor

guy and he's a researcher for John

Hopkins now at the time this is a normal

thing to do sure they're trying to

figure out what's going on so this would

happen to a white person or a black

person it would take a sample from

good healthy cell tissue and cancer cell

tissue compare the two they do that

nowadays yes so this is not you don't

need to give consent to have those

samples taken and tested sure I mean

you've basically when you come in and

you say like I'm signing all the forms

to say like yeah I'm not going to sue

you if you help me out and you're doing

all this stuff like that's what you're

signing so it's Dr guy who's the

researcher John Hopkins who takes these

cells and he's the one who and we'll get

into what happens he discovers this cell

line and he calls it the Gila cell line

yeah now what's unique about her cell

line well we'll talk more about that but

let me talk more about her life okay

sure

so Gila is the first two initials of her

first name and the person initials of a

last name yeah that was a cool that's

how they then and that was just a

typical way of labeling cell lines it

wasn't unique to her this is how they

would do everybody's cell line these

easy way to classify them

uh she goes back to the hospital for

severe abdominal pain in August of 1951

she stays there and she dies in October

October 4th 1951 and she's buried in

Clover in an unmarked grave until 2010

and she dies at 31 years old yeah so

what happens is Dr guy after taking

these cells

he notices that they not only produce at

a high rate but they are they stay alive

they don't they don't die

so you can keep them alive long enough

to examine them to do tests on them

which which wasn't normal it's never

never been seen before right most cell

lines die quickly they can't survive

outside the body they don't multiply

like that now was it these were like the

cells that were already affected by the

cancer so

they're not sure quite what happened

what happens is I think they what I

believe when I was reading is they took

a cell from the cancer so a mutated

malignant cell and he made the cell line

from one of those cells so it actually

is like a a cell line that has been

adapted from her cell line sure sure so

it is it quite technically

a a healthy Gila right or right cell

right it is a cancerous and then it's a

line that's been made from that right

and they're the first cells that could

be divided multiple times without dying

and that's why they're called Immortal

so that's why it's the immortal

Henrietta Lacks and it's not even so

much that it's like right cells right

there's I'm not I'm not I've never

claimed to be good at science right but

so you can split a cell I'm assuming

tons of times but it's basically it just

won't die like this like this to this

day right as we are recording it's 2022.

her cell line is a lie it's alive it's

the one that's been used it's for

biomedical research it's the most

contemporary used cell line yeah it's

just when I heard that one you kind of

think like does this woman have like

super powers yes it's crazy so that's

kind of what we talk about in the video

is we I equate her to Wonder Woman yeah

I equate her to the closest thing you

will ever know to a superhero sure

because you know those superheroes those

cells regenerate quickly they know they

don't die because Wolverines yeah they

can heal fast yeah right now it's not

quite the same thing but it's the

closest thing you'll get to it is

because her cell line that one specific

cell

it repeatedly divides and divides and

divides and they can make samples of it

and send them off in all the little

vials and these have led to huge

breakthroughs like the Gila cell line

developed the polio vaccine yeah the

hela cell line developed

um the AIDS we did the AIDS research

cancer research it's it's the first cell

that was cloned in 1955 and there's 11

000 patents that the Gila cell line has

developed

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and if I remember right when I was

making the video and doing you know my

little bit of post right what all the

research that you do right I'm looking

up stuff I mean it actually the the cell

kind of got out into the the greater I

say medical community around the world

pretty quickly oh yes everyone uses it

yeah I mean and not just us worldwide

worldwide and you so there are companies

that you can buy sells from to do

research yeah and they mass-produced the

hela cell line so it's basically a

commercialized cell line yeah it's and

so that's where you get into the ethics

right of this because so much money has

been generated from her cell line right

right not even millions billions of

dollars yeah easy and so then you have

her family she dies at 31 right and she

has

how many children by that point she has

six

three which is five five children by

that point and they get

just you know then they get distributed

to family right because she died yeah

and they suffer trauma people who didn't

want to raise them or weren't very good

caregivers and they grew up in relative

poverty some of her children can't even

afford medical insurance and here her

cell line is developing these huge

breakthroughs in medical research

generating billions of dollars and her

family can't get their own medical

coverage right so what happens is

people don't want to know more about the

cell line who are these people who are

who's this family that that this selling

came from so they would get phone calls

through the years oh uh how often were

you sick

what happened to your family researchers

trying to do kind of post whatever

follow-up yeah

they didn't quite understand what they

were being asked and told especially her

husband when they said well we have her

cell line here he thought is she still

alive like what what are you saying I I

she died like they didn't quite

understand yeah and so not only are they

using their mothers and wives cell line

but they start to really dig into their

medical history sure and so that kind of

ethical questions of their medical

history being so

relatively public I mean even though

it's like medical you know HIPAA and all

that stuff when there's that many

medical laboratories it's hard to say

that that's private yes and so that's

where more ethics comes into play plus

she's African-American so you fall into

these other ethical questions the

Tuskegee experiment where they gave all

these men African-American men syphilis

unbeknownst to them to see what it would

do to them and that happened in 1950s

right you have all these

African-American women who were enslaved

who were tested on by doctors who became

the fathers of gynecology

and these women gave no consent and they

found out all about women's reproductive

Health by testing these enslaved women

yeah and these men then get revered

as breakthroughs in medical science so

yeah there's a lot of questions yeah so

that's where Gila Henry lacks falls into

that realm yeah so you start to question

well are we

are we overlooking her rights because

she's African-American are we

overlooking her rights because she's a

woman are we looking at where she comes

from so those are the kind of questions

so her family when this was all brought

to light when they could understand what

was happening

that's when they kind of pushed back and

asked for more say and what happens to

herself ask for more just a seat at the

table

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yeah I mean she didn't have you

mentioned it in the video I mean her

grave didn't even have a headstone until

like a few years ago yeah 2010 and it

was Dr Gay and his group from John

Hopkins that sponsored that that I

didn't realize that they are the ones

who paid for it that's actually kind of

cool it is I mean they will never they

never admitted any wrong during

apologized but they would do

stuff like that sure right so very aware

of what they're doing and saying without

saying it yeah I didn't realize that

they were the ones who who helped do

that yeah and then I think they've also

funded like some other family headstones

I don't know if it's them but like so

what family has written yes so for for

at least for for Elsie

um who had a hard life because she was

born with a mental handicap and then she

was institutionalized

their family when they knew that

Henrietta Lacks was getting a tombstone

the family raised money to make sure

that she had one as well yeah so that's

what that other when you see the two

tombstones they look relatively newer

yeah and that's why that's if you can

find if you can find so that's that was

part of our journey yeah absolutely so

putting the story together

again she should be more revered and

more celebrated and when you go to

Clover there is a marker to her but that

is it and we wanted to find her grave

and we really wanted to pay respects to

her gray but her grave is unmarked her

grade was marked but it's in an unmarked

graveyard right well so let me let me

kind of paint the larger picture here so

here we are driving from Norfolk out to

Clover it's about three hours it's three

hours yes kids are Troopers right the

the marker is pretty easy to find that's

the first thing I think that we found

it's right off the kind of little main

highway freeway there so we we find that

you know and then we kind of like you

don't your kind of research ahead of

time and be like okay I think this is

where either her husband's grave might

be so we went to find a grave we went to

find a grave and find a grave gives you

usually gives you like a GPS coordinate

yeah and it gave us a GPS coordinate for

her for the marker oh on this side of

the road yeah and then I usually what I

do when I do grave research these are

the kind of helpful hints that I give is

look up a spouse or a child that's

buried close by and sometimes it'll give

you that marker yeah and you can find

them that way so we did her husband

that's why we went over there and for

David uh lacks it gave us that that GPS

coordinate rate in that tobacco farm

area and so to anybody listening I would

not recommend trying to drive out to you

need a four-wheel drive you need a

four-wheel drive vehicle we were driving

like off I think there's a sign that's

like you're no longer driving in like

state-funded roads right it's all of a

sudden it was dirt and gravel and you

know just kind of we're out there in the

boonies so that's why I thought the

grave uh the the graveyard was that's

worth it it kind of would have kind of

would have made sense sure so we looked

around couldn't find it and I knew she

had a tombstone I knew she had a

memorial marker we weren't seeing

anything we weren't seeing anything like

that so we drove back out and as we're

driving out we see a car on the side of

the road and I'm I told Scott I'm just

gonna ask this person because we're in a

small town I grew up in a small town I

know small town thank God you did

because I am not that person maybe it's

just because I'm a guy and I don't want

to ask directions but I was like ah we

can't find this we're driving back out

this is like one little road yeah

was it lacks road yeah it lacks yeah Lex

Road

um Lex family Road

lacks Town Road LAX town LAX town road

so where we drove in dockstown road all

the way till the dirt off the off the

Incorporated part of it you know back in

the boonies back there I mean Clover

Virginia is is pretty remote there might

be a town of like maybe a couple hundred

people yeah I don't even know if the

town's incorporated or if it's an actual

town I'm not sure but we're driving back

out we're like we're kind of getting

frustrated we're hoping we can find it

we're looking around we see this truck

just kind of looks like someone's

waiting for someone to come out of their

house sweet Jen's like windows open yeah

she's like she's like Scott pulled next

to this person I'm gonna ask I was like

okay fine so you do and then she just

strikes up a conversation yeah I asked

that ma'am we're looking for Henrietta

lack's grave do you know where it's at

she goes oh Henny yeah her grave is back

the way you came yeah you're gonna go

down the hill and you're gonna see a

house on the right a yellow house with

the door open it's an old house yeah

very country directions yeah it was

quite adorable she's like and when you

see that house it's just right off right

off beside it you'll see a little path

and which there's no path it's just

grass yeah yeah I mean luckily we were

there in winter so it's a little bit

easier to see because all the leaves

were off the trees and she's like and

you just drive up that path and don't

worry it looks like you're driving on a

lawn but you're not just drive up that

path and you'll see it when you get up

there and I was like okay so down the

hill and she's like yeah just just down

the hill don't go back up the hill and I

told her we just went over a bridge she

goes no don't go that's too far she goes

just down the hill you'll see the yellow

house with the door open it's open

because no one lives there anymore and

it's it's an old abandoned house it's an

abandoned house she goes and that's

where you're gonna it you won't see a

road or anything you'll just go right

beside it you'll see some grass area

drive on that and drive up over that

hill and that's and I would say you

don't need four-wheel drive to get up

there no I wouldn't say that it's it

wasn't it wasn't that bad but that those

were good directions yeah and you

wouldn't we wouldn't be able to find

another one there's no sign there's no

nothing you can't see it from the road

you would think it's someone's lawn yeah

so we have GPS locations like precise

GPS locations for that you know on our

website if you want to look up the

episode travel guide for for that

particular episode yes and I you know I

posted some of this on Facebook finding

the grave and I had some people say well

maybe their family doesn't want you to

know don't want you to see it but the

family has explicitly said they want her

story told yeah they want her celebrated

they want people to know her they want

people to celebrate her and respect her

so I felt like no I think they want

people they're they're pretty public

about it I mean when I Googled you know

the lacks family and Henrietta Lacks I

mean part of the top hits was like some

recent lawsuits that they're trying to

that they're they're kind of working on

again some of these big medical

companies that are excuse me um making

making money off of this exactly so we

we went to the Grave there's there's

about 20 Graves yeah easily it's

definitely a family yeah it's a family

plot yeah plot

um and we left our Wonder Woman figurine

at her grave and we paid our respects uh

her grave looks like a book

almost and I think her family wrote the

Epitaph okay so I think it was her

granddaughters who wrote the Epitaph on

the front but it's very respectful she's

buried beside her mother

and then she has a

uh her daughter Elsie on the other side

so it's her mother on one side and Elsie

on the other side so I think it's a very

for me it was just a very important

place to be there it looked like a very

solemn place and beautiful place I'm

happy we found it you never would have

been able to find it no no we got we got

we got super lucky I think I saw one

YouTube video

it was like somebody looked like they

were in their Jeep showing that they

were driving up up to it but it's only

because I was specifically Googling you

know Henrietta Lacks you know Family

Cemetery or something and so I was able

to find it and you could see right but

he's not really talking it's just kind

of him showing driving up that way

um but really learning about her in

general and then learning the Legacy

that she left through

medicine and the history there it was

quite incredible yeah it

here is a person who her life

and her cells

have made an immeasurable impact on all

of us on medicine like there's nobody

really who has not been touched by what

her cells have been able to produce in

the medical world the covid vaccine yeah

I mean so it's the work again this is

2022 right so if you're listening to

this in the future it's 2022 right now

the coveted vaccine right they used her

cells to develop that so it was just

learning all this and making the video

was was really pretty neat because here

is someone who's

I don't know if that she's really taught

in in history classes and this that and

the other but the impact that she had

and she's well enough known that she

there was a you know movie made and

Oprah was in it and this that and the

other but it was pretty incredible so

Henrietta Lacks may not have known what

her Legacy would be but it's there

nonetheless her sales for right or wrong

have provided medical breakthroughs that

doctors have only dreamed of before the

hela cell was named it became widely

known and used in medical research

so next time you talk to someone who's

received a cancer treatment HPV vaccine

and vitro fertilization and yes the

covid vaccine think of Henrietta Lacks

thank you for listening to the talk with

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thank you Henry relax and thank you to

her family we'll talk to you next time

foreign

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