System of oppression · 1840–2025
Medical Racism
From experiments on enslaved women to the Tuskegee study to today's maternal-mortality gap, American medicine has used, neglected, and exploited Black bodies.
The history of American medicine is entangled with the exploitation of Black people. The "father of modern gynecology," J. Marion Sims, perfected his techniques through surgeries on enslaved women — Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey — without anesthesia. In 1932 the U.S. Public Health Service began the Tuskegee study, deceiving 600 Black men and withholding treatment for syphilis for 40 years. In 1951 doctors took Henrietta Lacks's cells without consent, building a medical-research empire on the "HeLa" line while her family went unrecognized for decades.
The pattern persists: coerced sterilizations into the 1970s, and a maternal-mortality rate for Black women three to four times that of white women regardless of income. It is one of the clearest expressions of how Black life was, and is, devalued — and of greed in the form of unconsented research and profit.
On the timeline
- 1845J. Marion Sims experiments on enslaved women
The "father of modern gynecology" develops surgical techniques through repeated operations on enslaved women — Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey — without anesthesia.
- 1932The Tuskegee syphilis study begins
The U.S. Public Health Service begins a 40-year study that deceives 600 Black men in Alabama and withholds treatment for syphilis even after a cure exists.
- February 1951Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells
Doctors take Henrietta Lacks's cells without consent; the immortal "HeLa" line transforms medicine while her family is left unrecognized and uncompensated for decades.
Resources
Coerced sterilizations of incarcerated women — a near-forgotten eugenic practice.
Black mothers die at 3–4x the rate of white mothers regardless of income or education.
Segregated polio care as a precursor to today's health disparities.
J. Marion Sims's surgeries on Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey, and other enslaved women.
Sims's experiments, forced sterilization, and Tuskegee in one through-line.
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- builds on·ThreadChattel Slavery
American medicine's use of Black bodies began with experiments on the enslaved.
- connects to·ThreadGreed — The Root
Unconsented research and the HeLa line turned Black bodies into uncompensated profit.
- documented by (incoming)·PersonFannie Lou Hamer
Hamer's forced "Mississippi appendectomy" exposed coerced sterilization of Black women.