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Friend,
On a quiet street in Alabama’s capital, Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy stand 15 feet tall, composed of pieces of mixed metal welded together.
They represent the enslaved Black women and girls whom art activist Michelle Browder calls the “Mothers of Gynecology.” These girls and others were involuntarily subjected to painful experimental surgeries, without the use of anesthesia, to advance the tools and techniques that have shaped how reproductive care is provided today.
Yet no memorial bore their names until Browder erected their statues in 2021 with the help of donors, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Not far from where they stand in Montgomery, a monument on the state Capitol grounds honors J. Marion Sims, the man known as the “Father of Modern Gynecology.” It’s a designation that could not have been achieved without the forced participation of the enslaved women and girls on whom Sims conducted experimental procedures in Montgomery between 1848 and 1849.
To many, the Sims memorial, dedicated in 1939, represents a disregard for both the women who underwent his operations and the history of white supremacist brutality in the United States. Browder, the SPLC and the American Medical Association (AMA) are calling for the relocation of the statue to the nearby site of his former office, where they believe his legacy can be framed in a more proper historical context.
This effort and its historical connection to the inequities in health care that Black women face today were the focus of a three-day event that ends today. The event, Chart the Course: Changing the Narrative Through Policy & Relocation of J. Marion Sims, was hosted by Browder and sponsored by the SPLC and the AMA.
Today, the final day of the program and the start of Women’s History Month, Browder is inviting members of the public to join her from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Bicentennial Park, only steps away from the state Capitol, to learn more about the effort to relocate the Sims statue and historically contextualize his work.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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