ABSTRACT
34 35The only sound in the biology classroom was the voice of one student as he began reading aloud: “On 4 October 1951, a young black woman named Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer…” An image of the book cover for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was projected on the front screen as he read. 1 At the end of each paragraph, Grace called on a different student to continue. This was not a strategy she used often—after all, the students had been assigned the article to read for homework—but the hushed and respectful tone she set for the read-aloud was necessary for the subsequent conversation she had planned. Some students tried to break into the reading with questions, but Grace held them at bay. Students heard that HeLa cells, which are commonly used in research because of their unique properties, were named after Henrietta Lacks, the patient from whom they were harvested without consent. “Yet,” another reader continued, “Henrietta’s body lies in an unmarked grave, while her children have revealed they did not learn for more than 20 years that their mother’s cells were still alive and had been used to create an entire branch of medical science.” 2 Grace asked the students to discuss at their tables whatever thoughts they had about what they had just heard.
