J. Marion Sims

 

A statue of Sims in front of The Alabama Capitol.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Statues Have Prompted Protest

J. Marion Sims continues to loom large in the medical field, celebrated as a medical trailblazer. Statues were erected to him in, among other places, New York City's Central Park, the South Carolina statehouse, outside his old medical school, Jefferson University, in Philadelphia and outside the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery (put there by The Medical Association of Alabama.)

He relocated to Montgomery, Alabama, seeking a fresh start, after the death of his first two patients.

After several years of activism, the Philadelphia statue was moved into storage and the statue in Central Park was removed on April 17, 2018. Its plaque was to be replaced by one that educates the public on the origins of the monument and the controversial, non-consensual medical experiments Sims used on women of color. The names (and histories) of the three known women “whose bodies were used in the name of medical and scientific advancement” by Sims, Lucy, Anarcha and Betsey, were to be recognized on the new plaque.

It's a recognition some see as overdue. In a 1941 paper titled “The Negro’s Contribution to Surgery,” published in the _Journal of the National Medical Associatio_n, Dr. John A. Kenney of the Tuskegee Institute, considered the dean of Black dermatology, wrote, “I suggest that a monument be raised and dedicated to the nameless Negroes who have contributed so much to surgery by the ‘guinea pig’ route.”

(SOURCE HERE.)