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Happy Juneteenth! In this episode, we commemorate Juneteenth with a special focus on Henrietta Lacks, and an exclusive interview with her grandson Alfred Lacks Carter, Jr. From the polio vaccine to IVF and COVID-19 vaccines, we owe so many of our medical developments from the past 50 years to one woman—a woman whose cells were taken and used without her permission, let alone compensation. In this riveting episode, Lacks Carter shares an intimate family portrait of his grandmother, turning pain into purpose.
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Transcript:
00:00:00 Michele Goodwin:
Welcome to On the Issues, with Michele Goodwin, at Ms. Magazine. As you know, we’re a show that reports, rebels, and we tell it just like it is. On this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality. So, join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times. On our show, history matters. We examine the past as we think about and pivot to the future, and in this very special Juneteenth episode, I’m joined by Alfred Lacks-Carter.
He is the grandson of Henrietta Lacks, and in this episode, we honor and acknowledge Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who received medical services at Johns Hopkins, and as she did, her tissues were taken from her without consent. Those tissue, the cell line, what has become known as the HeLa cell line, and known as an immortal cell line, has been crucial to medical innovation, from the polio vaccine to even contemporary matters of in-vitro fertilization, and the COVID-19 vaccine.
Alfred shares so much of his family’s personal legacy in this episode, the pain that they experienced, what Henrietta’s life was like, and how her legacy lives on. It is a story that is powerful, heartbreaking, and that is bound with such tremendous grace and forgiveness, as well. So, sit back and take a listen as we commemorate Juneteenth and think about the immortal life, the incredible life, the generous life of Henrietta Lacks.
00:00:04 Michele Goodwin:
Alfred, thank you, so much, for joining us for this program, for this podcast. You know, you came to my attention through a colleague who’s a lawyer, whose brother I know, and it was so fortuitous, and I’m so grateful for it, for many reasons, but let me start with this. You’re the grandson of Henrietta Lacks, the Henrietta Lacks, whose cell line, whose biologics, have been used to basically save the world. Isn’t that right?
00:00:45 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Yes, ma’am. Henrietta Lacks, my grandmother, as you stated, her cells are immortal, and not only are her immortal cells saving lives, they are also creating lives through IVF, which is very, very…it’s a great honor. When I have young women come up to me and say Mr. Lacks Carter, I just want to thank you and your family, I have a child because of your grandmother, it’s just a surreal feeling, and it makes me so proud to be a descendant of Henrietta Lacks.
00:01:34 Michele Goodwin:
Your grandmother, she passed away in 1951. She was 31 years old, and she had been treated at Johns Hopkins. Can you tell us the story behind her immortal cell line, how we came to know this?
00:02:03 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Okay. Well, my grandmother was experiencing abdominal pain in 1951, and she was seen by Dr. William Wade, in Turners Station, Maryland, and Dr. William Wade is an African American doctor in Turners Station, Maryland, where Henrietta lived. He was the one who initially diagnosed Henrietta with cervical cancer, and he referred her to Johns Hopkins hospital, where she went to the colored ward and was seen.
They did not, in my opinion, try to save her life. She was treated as a subject, as a test research type of thing, and it’s really sad because the state anatomy board who oversaw organ donation, back then, which was started in 1947, did not step in when they stole Henrietta’s cells.
Dr. George Guy even admitted, in the BBC documentary, in 1996, that he sent his assistant back in to steal more cells from Henrietta, after she was dead, while she was on the autopsy table, and that is so heart-wrenching, and disheartening, and for this man to hold a press conference on the same day, October 4, 1951, when Henrietta passed away, and tell the world that he has found cancer cells that regenerate, but he never told the world that it was Henrietta Lacks.
It was like a coverup. Our family didn’t know anything about the HeLa cells until 25 years later, when Johns Hopkins, again, came to our family, in 1976, saying that they were testing for cancer when, in fact, they were trying to find the same biomarker that Henrietta Lacks’ cells had existed. So, they were still operating in deception years later.
Michele Goodwin 00:05:11 I
There’s so much to unpack there, and so, when your grandmother died, on October 4, 1951, at Johns Hopkins, she left behind children. There was Deborah Lacks, Elsie Lacks, Zakariyya Bari Abdul, David Lacks, Lawrence Lacks. Have I missed anybody?
00:05:40 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
No. You’re correct. There was five children that Henrietta left behind. The youngest, she had actually, not too long, had given birth to her youngest child, Zakariyya, before she passed away. My mom was next to the youngest. My mother was 2 years old when Henrietta succumbed to cervical cancer, which is a very, very deep-rooted psychological thing that my mother had to go through, because my aunt Elsie, she was admitted into an institution at a very young age.
So, my mother grew up with all brothers and uncles. So, she had to learn how to be a woman, a young lady, by trial and error, and the things that my mother went through with attempted molestation and just being ostracized by, you know, different people in the family, it was very hurtful to know these things, and you know, my mother, she was the pioneer of this HeLa cell. She was the one who wanted to know who her mother was and everything about her mother. So, she went on a mission to do her own research. I know a lot of people give a lot of accolades to the young lady who wrote the book.
00:07:25 Michele Goodwin:
Rebecca Skloot, right?
00:07:28 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Yes. You know, they give her a lot of accolades, and you know, but my mother, I have handwritten notes that my mother was writing her own …a lot of people don’t know these facts.
A lot of people don’t know that when my mother passed away, in 2009, nine months before this book was released
00:09:10 Michele Goodwin:
That is so painful.
00:09:16 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
It’s very, very painful because a lot of people think that Rebecca Skloot is the savior for this family, and she’s not. That is the reason why I wrote my book, Shadows of Immortality: the Untold Struggles of Henrietta Lacks’ Grandson, and it gives you perspective from a family member,. . That’s why I wrote my book, and I have a picture of Mr. Gregory, right here with me, in my book, and you know, if I could, could I just read a couple of paragraphs?
00:11:48 Michele Goodwin:
Please. Please.
00:11:50 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
I say marginalized people seldom get the opportunity to tell their stories from their own perspectives. Either we must water down our victories, exaggerate our tribulations with sensationalism, or sugar-coat the truth to be heard, but I’m determined to speak my whole truth while standing in the shadows, because extraordinary people often survive life’s darkest challenges.
Though darkness may surround us, I’ve discovered accompanying truth, where there’s no flicker of light, shadows cannot exist. This revelation, a childhood gift tucked deep inside within me, in my heart, has become an underlying beacon of hope, a thread guiding me through even the darkest nights, and now, I’m stepping out of the shadows. I finally realize that telling my story sheds light to dark places, giving voice to pain, shame, and disappointments.
It is self-liberating. It also helps others with a blueprint to escape the pitfalls of poverty. Breaking free from shadows means everything must come to the light. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and my grandmother, Henrietta Lacks, would not want us walking in her shadows. So, I’m telling my own story and shining the light on the way to escape the prison of marginalization.
00:13:36 Michele Goodwin:
That’s pretty powerful, Alfred. Thank you, so much, for reading that. As one looks at the past, your grandmother, she endures into the future, and that’s one of the beauties and the benefits that you spoke about, and yet it also means that the tragedy of what happened to her, you know, it’s like the duality. You see the tragedy into the future, but you also see the hope, right? As in, you mentioned the people who are using IVF, in-vitro fertilization, today, and those technologies being brought about in part through that HeLa cell line.
So, these were the first human cell lines to be grown and replicated, indefinitely, in a laboratory setting, and that was started then at Johns Hopkins, and from that has been this array of scientific research, breaking through fields like cancer, immunology, infectious diseases. They’ve played a crucial role. Your grandmother’s cell line has played a crucial role in the development of the polio vaccine and has also been used in research related to COVID-19 vaccines. That, it’s extraordinary. It’s truly extraordinary.
00:15:02 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
It is. It’s very, very extraordinary, and to know that this came from a young African American woman who is always…the narrative has always been a poor tobacco farmer from Virginia. We didn’t come from a poor background, and that’s another thing that, you know, I wanted to correct the narrative that our family was poor, uneducated. It was a lot of sensationalism and embellishments in that book to make our family seem like we were, you know, some family from in the woods, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
And I spoke to Rebecca, and I asked her, because there were some things that she said about me in the book, that I got a GED when I was in prison, and I didn’t get a GED when I was in prison. I’m a high school graduate, with college. I was a GED tutor. I was helping guys get their GED. She never spoke about me being in the Marine Corps. She never spoke about none of the accomplishments that my mom had. My mother was a licensed barber. She was a licensed cosmetologist. She was a licensed nail tech.
She also invented, invented, a baby bottle warmer, all these extraordinary things that my mother invented and accomplished, but none of these things were conveyed to the reader.
00:17:58 Michele Goodwin:
I think some people don’t even know about some of the modern technologies that are associated with her cell line, like COVID-19, assisted reproductive technologies. What does justice look like, now, for your family?
00:18:23 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Well, I think justice starts with Maryland State Anatomy Board, the violation. They allowed Johns Hopkins to wrongfully take tissue after the autopsy without consent and confessed it on-camera. They never acknowledged the single greatest tissue contribution in Maryland’s history, nor did they memorialize any of her accomplishments.
You know, these companies have taken so much from my family, and they continue to take from my family. I own the trademark, Henrietta Lacks, for education, for printed materials. You name it, I own it. These organizations and these companies won’t even respect the trademark. They won’t even respect the trademark, and I really feel like the time is now to shine the light and advocate for things that mean so much to the future of this world, like organ and tissue donation, clinical research. That’s what my organization is all about.
00:20:17 Michele Goodwin:
So, what you would actually like to do, right, which I’m sorry to interrupt you, but this is a really important point that you’re making. Even though your family has experienced what it has, the exploitation that your grandmother endured, your sense of the world is how can we help more people contribute to health and science, how can we make more people understand the importance of organ and tissue donation?
And that’s pretty amazing, especially given that the narrative often is that Black people don’t want to donate, Black people will not want to donate, and one might say, of anybody, of any family, it might be the Lacks family saying stay away, but instead, you’re saying what you’ve been trying to do is bring ethics to this, to bring bioethics to this, to say that there should be honor, and dignity, and integrity associated with this, and that people shouldn’t be exploited, but you support tissue and organ donation?
00:21:16 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Yes, ma’am, I support it 100 percent. My organization has partnered with Infinite Legacy, The Decision Project. I’ve done a couple of events with them. We have some things in the future that we’re going to do. My organization also was partnering with Walgreens to promote clinical trials, because, you know, it’s the humanity for me. You know, we have a lot of people out here taking advantage of the platform that Henrietta Lacks has left.
And a lot of times, people are doing things for their own personal gain and not from the heart. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m doing this from the heart. I’m doing this to continue my grandmother’s legacy and continue the hard work that my mother, Deborah Lacks, has really given her life to, and for her not to be spoken about in interviews and just kind of like put on the back burner, it’s asinine to me.
And I’m taking this story back, and my organization, we’re going to do something so powerful to save lives. That’s why we came up with Immortal Like Her, because when it comes to organ tissue donation and clinical trials, you’re helping somebody else to live. So, that means you are being immortalized, like Henrietta Lacks.
00:22:58 Michele Goodwin:
You are amazing. Thank you, so very much, for joining me for our Ms. Magazine platform, our podcast. Your voice means so much. Sharing your story means so much. The work that you’re doing to contribute to health and science, and of course, your grandmother’s legacy, is incredible. It is immortal. My final question to you is what gives you hope?
00:23:30 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
What gives me hope is knowing that the very disease, the very cancer, cervical cancer, that killed my grandmother, her HeLa cells have lived long enough to eradicate the very disease that killed her. That is so powerful. That is so powerful. The HPV vaccine, I think it was in 2006, and for her cells to live long enough to create this vaccine, to prevent the cancer that killed her, is remarkable, and people need to understand that, and then that’s what gives me hope.
When I wake up every morning, Ms. Goodwin, when I wake up, every morning, it gives me hope to be a better person and to help someone, because when you’re suffering from cancer, it’s like a death sentence, and that’s the reason why I got into this field. I’m not a doctor. I’m not in the health field. All I know is that my grandmother’s cells are extraordinary, and God has given me the gift to be able to convey and to speak to people and to bring the truth to the masses.
So, that’s what gives me hope, and I just want everybody to know that this family, this family, the Lacks family, is standing together in solidarity to remove the shadows of everything that has happened. That’s why I am partnering with Morehouse School of Medicine. Morehouse School of Medicine is going to be the curator of Henrietta Lacks’ health records. I have her medical records. They are going to be the curator, and they are going to create something so powerful to help generations to come, and I’m just so excited.
00:26:23 Michele Goodwin:
Well, I’m just so excited to have had the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you, so very much, for joining me.
00:26:32 Alfred Lacks-Carter:
Thank you for having me, Ms. Goodwin. Thank you.