Introduction
In the year of 1951, life as and African American in any state of the U.S. was not easy. During this time, African Americans still hadn’t gained equal rights as white American’s because this was before the time of the Civil Rights Movement. Many individuals and families of the African American race struggled in finding jobs to make money, providing food, and getting some sort of academic education. On the day of August 8, 1951 a thirty-year old African American mother named Henrietta Lacks took a trip to John Hopkins University to have a pain in her stomach checked out. Upon her visit, not only did Henrietta discover that she had terminal cervical cancer, but her cells were also discovered, and taken samples of, without the permission of Henrietta or any other Lacks’. From that day forward, the history of medicine had changed. Two very long and tough months after her first diagnosis, nature took its course with Henrietta Lacks, but her cells remained alive. The samples that were taken from Henrietta’s body before her passing had gone to a man named George Otto Gey, who researched and spent his time over these cells, to fully understand them. It is then that Dr. Gey discovered that not only could Henrietta’s cells remain alive, but they could also grow indefinitely. This is the start of the HeLa cells that have changed the world of medicine.