Play, Exhibit at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum Explore Local Link to Medical Breakthroughs

We can thank one woman for many of the major medical breakthroughs of modern times. Her name is Henrietta Lacks, and she is a great aunt of Kalamazoo resident Jermaine Jackson. For more than 70 years, her cells have been used in experiments, but she never gave her consent.

"Without her cells, we would not have had many advances in the medical field," said Jackson, while noting Lacks is more than just her cells. "I want people to know who she was as an individual, as my aunt, as a mother, as a grandmother, as a sister and as a wife."

Her cells, which were harvested during a medical procedure at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951, led to the COVID and polio vaccines, advances in AIDS and cancer treatments, and more. Researchers continue to utilize her cell line known as HeLa cells, because, unlike other human cells, hers have the unique ability to multiply on their own outside of the body.

Johns Hopkins offered HeLa cells freely and widely for scientific research. Although her cells were the first that could be easily shared and multiplied in a lab setting, Johns Hopkins, however, never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line. Construction of the Henrietta Lacks Building is expected to begin in January 2023 on the Johns Hopkins East Baltimore Campus.

This fall, the story of Lacks, an African- American woman who died in October 1951, will be explained through "A HeLa Story: Mother of Modern Medicine," a play and mini exhibit coming to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. It is a joint project between the museum and Kalamazoo Valley Community College in collaboration with Jackson. Both are free.

"The Henrietta Lacks story, which has worldwide significance, has gone underreported for too many years," Museum Director Bill McElhone said. "I'm most excited about advancing awareness of her and exploring her story filled with many accomplishments, inequities and injustices to drive important conversations."

The exhibit is inspired by the artwork, memorabilia, family photos, news clippings and other items in a traveling exhibition about Lacks that Jackson completed in early 2020, right before the pandemic began. It is funded in part by the KVCC Foundation. The exhibit opens Sept. 1.

The play, written by local playwright Buddy Hannah, shares the personal side of Lacks, who was married to a brother of the husband of Jackson's grandmother, Bessie Lacks, of Kalamazoo. Hannah will direct.

The play is interwoven with poems and essays from area writers William Hatcher, Aija Hodges, Charles E. Peterson Sr. and James J. Smith. The logo for "A HeLa Story" features a Lacks portrait by Grand Rapids artist Jamari Taylor.

The museum's Mary Jane Stryker Theater will host the play three times: at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, and at 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 1. Zaynee Hobdy, a member of Face Off Theatre Company in Kalamazoo, plays Henrietta Lacks, and director/actor Sid Ellis is Jermaine Jackson. Also starring will be D. Neil Bremer, Jennifer Clark and Aija Hodges, with Angela Anderson and Kim Chandler serving as narrators.

For more information, visit kalamazoomuseum.org. Seating for the play will be limited. It will be first come, first served. The exhibit will run from Sept. 1, 2022, through Feb. 27, 2023. Admission to all events is free. Lectures are also planned this fall. The Kalamazoo Valley Museum is operated by Kalamazoo Valley Community College and is governed by its Board of Trustees.