# Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology **Neil L. & Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery at the Hutchins Center** ![rudenstine_01.jpeg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/hutchins/files/rudenstine_01.jpeg) Curated by **Dell Marie Hamilton** Co-sponsored with the **Resilient Sisterhood Project** On view through **December 15, 2023** Featuring the art of **Jules Arthur, Michelle Browder, Michelle Hartney, Jeremy Daniel, Vinnie Bagwell, King Cobra, Anyika McMillan-Herod, Malcolm Herod, Charly Evon Simpson, Tsedaye Makonnen, Sarah Krulwich, Howard Simmons,** and **Spencer Platt** ### About the Curator expand\_more Artist, writer and curator, Dell Marie Hamilton serves in a variety of research, editorial and curatorial capacities at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She has performed extensively throughout the Boston and New England area including at the MFA/Boston, the Clark Art Institute, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the Havana Biennial and is a recipient of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s 2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses live performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Art in America and NKA: Contemporary Journal of African Art as well as in the anthology AntiBlackness, (Duke University Press, 2021) which investigates how the dehumanization of Black people has been foundational to the establishment of modernity. Her work also appears on the cover of Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and the Philosophy of Religion (Duke University Press, 2021). She is also a recipient of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum’s 2021 inaugural cohort of the Charla Fund, a Ford Foundation-sponsored initiative that provides grants to Latinx artists. This fall, she will curate a group exhibition for the Fitchburg Art Museum’s inaugural Black Artist Residency program in collaboration with the artist collective “WhereAreAllTheBlackPeopleAt.” To explore her work, visit [www.dellmhamilton.com](https://dellmhamilton.com/home.html) or follow her on Twitter and Instagram via @dellmhamilton. ### The Resilient Sisterhood Project expand\_more The Resilient Sisterhood Project’s mission is to educate and empower women of African descent regarding common yet rarely discussed diseases of the reproductive system that disproportionately affect them. We approach these diseases and associated issues through a cultural and social justice lens—as we believe that poor knowledge of reproductive health is primarily related to health, racial, and socioeconomic disparities. [rsphealth.org](https://rsphealth.org/) Artist, writer and curator, Dell Marie Hamilton serves in a variety of research, editorial and curatorial capacities at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She has performed extensively throughout the Boston and New England area including at the MFA/Boston, the Clark Art Institute, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the Havana Biennial and is a recipient of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s 2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses live performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Art in America and NKA: Contemporary Journal of African Art as well as in the anthology AntiBlackness, (Duke University Press, 2021) which investigates how the dehumanization of Black people has been foundational to the establishment of modernity. Her work also appears on the cover of Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and the Philosophy of Religion (Duke University Press, 2021). She is also a recipient of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum’s 2021 inaugural cohort of the Charla Fund, a Ford Foundation-sponsored initiative that provides grants to Latinx artists. This fall, she will curate a group exhibition for the Fitchburg Art Museum’s inaugural Black Artist Residency program in collaboration with the artist collective “WhereAreAllTheBlackPeopleAt.” To explore her work, visit [www.dellmhamilton.com](https://dellmhamilton.com/home.html) or follow her on Twitter and Instagram via @dellmhamilton. ### Curatorial Statement expand\_more In 2019, the Resilient Sisterhood Project, (RSP), a non-profit healthcare advocacy organization that supports Black communities, took a leading role in illuminating and raising public awareness about the notorious medical experiments of Dr. James Marion Sims, and the surgeries he conducted on enslaved Black women in the mid-19th century. Guided by the Sankofa principle of looking to the past to understand the present, RSP commissioned artist Jules Arthur to create a suite of paintings to center the identities of three of the women Sims named in his writings. They were known as Lucy, Betsey and Anarcha. In an effort to extend the conversation, this exhibition includes Arthur’s paintings as well as the work of Vinnie Bagwell, Michelle Browder, Jeremy Daniel, Michelle Hartney, King Cobra (documented as Doreen Lynette Garner), Sara Krulwich, Anyika McMillan-Herod, Malcolm Herod, Tsedaye Makonnen, and Charly Evon Simpson. These artists have sought to reclaim the memory of these courageous women with humanity and compassion. The photographs of Howard Simmons and Spencer Platt have documented the work of steadfast organizers who lobbied and pushed the City of New York to remove Sims’s monument at the corner of Central Park and East 103rd Street in 2018. Whether it’s the astronomical rates of Black maternal mortality, sterilization efforts that targeted Mexican and Puerto Rican women in the 20th century, or the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the push to block gender-affirming care for trans youth, this collaboration between RSP and the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, asks audiences to reflect on how the roots of this history and its attending racial, gender, ethnic and class biases are baked into the woeful state of contemporary healthcare practice. Artist, writer and curator, Dell Marie Hamilton serves in a variety of research, editorial and curatorial capacities at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She has performed extensively throughout the Boston and New England area including at the MFA/Boston, the Clark Art Institute, and the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. In 2019, she was a participating artist in the Havana Biennial and is a recipient of the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston’s 2021 James and Audrey Foster Prize. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses live performance, painting, drawing, installation, video, and photography. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Art in America and NKA: Contemporary Journal of African Art as well as in the anthology AntiBlackness, (Duke University Press, 2021) which investigates how the dehumanization of Black people has been foundational to the establishment of modernity. Her work also appears on the cover of Beyond Man: Race, Coloniality, and the Philosophy of Religion (Duke University Press, 2021). She is also a recipient of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum’s 2021 inaugural cohort of the Charla Fund, a Ford Foundation-sponsored initiative that provides grants to Latinx artists. This fall, she will curate a group exhibition for the Fitchburg Art Museum’s inaugural Black Artist Residency program in collaboration with the artist collective “WhereAreAllTheBlackPeopleAt.” To explore her work, visit [www.dellmhamilton.com](https://dellmhamilton.com/home.html) or follow her on Twitter and Instagram via @dellmhamilton. ### Download the Exhibition Guide expand\_more [Download](/file_url/2412) ### Call to Action expand\_more Artist Michelle Hartney, whose work is included in the “Call & Response” exhibition, urges audiences to take decisive action by pursuing their own corrective measures towards amending J. Marion Sims’s cruel legacy. **Step 1:** Visit Hartney’s website: and download her customized bookmark which highlights Sims’s surgeries on enslaved Black women. **Step 2:** View the list of medical publications that are still in circulation. **Step 3:** Access a map of the United States and click on your individual state. From there you will gain access to a list of academic institutions which may carry the publications listed in Step 2. **Step 4:** If you have access to these libraries, via your academic affiliation, visit these institutions and surreptitiously insert the bookmarks into the publications that mention J. Marion Sims or vesico-vaginal fistulas. **Step 5:** Take a photo of your “corrected” book and share on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/michellehartneyart/), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mmkhartney), or [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michelle-Hartney/319959764864944?ref=hl) to get more folks involved using the hashtag #correctinghistory #callandresponse #lucybetseyanarcha #hutchinscenter ### Events expand\_more [### Curator's Tour with Dell M. Hamilton ](/event/curators-tour-dell-m-hamilton-0?occ_id=0)May 1, 2023 | 3:00PM EDT | Rudenstine Gallery at the Hutchins Center, 104 Mount Auburn Street, Floor 3R, Cambridge, MA In Person Featuring the exhibition, Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology [### Curator's Tour with Dell M. Hamilton ](/event/curators-tour-dell-m-hamilton?occ_id=0)Apr 17, 2023 | 3:00PM EDT | Rudenstine Gallery at the Hutchins Center, 104 Mount Auburn Street, Floor 3R, Cambridge, MA In Person Featuring the exhibition, Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology ### In the News expand\_more [### Bay State Banner, 'Say their names: ‘Call and Response’ explores horrific history of medical testing on enslaved people' ](https://www.baystatebanner.com/2023/09/27/say-their-names-call-and-response-explores-horrific-history-of-medical-testing-on-enslaved-people/) September 27, 2023 A new exhibit at Harvard University explores the horrendous histories of nonconsensual medical testing on enslaved women and girls. In 24 artworks, the female victims of these atrocities are named, honored and avenged. ![jules-arthur_mothers-of-gynecology-img_6975-1-720x1024.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/jules-arthur_mothers-of-gynecology-img_6975-1-720x1024.jpg?itok=LvuRcDZ1) [### Boston Globe, 'A Harvard exhibit honors enslaved women’s contributions to reproductive health' ](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/08/14/metro/harvard-show-honors-enslaved-women-medical-contributions/) August 14, 2023 On a group outing, Black female physicians reflected on the troubling history of gynecology. ![globe-ruden.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/globe-ruden.jpg?itok=alLmKX50) [### Boston Art Review, 'Take the Day: Fourteen Exhibitions That Warrant Art-Filled Trips Across New England' ](https://bostonartreview.com/reviews/summer-2023-must-see-exhibitions-new-england/) June 20, 2023 In 2019, the Resilient Sisterhood Project commissioned Jules Arthur to paint Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha. Dr. James Marion Sims enslaved and violently experimented on these Black women in the mid-nineteenth century, and his findings led to modern gynecology... ![6_anarcha-scaled.jpeg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/6_anarcha-scaled.jpeg?itok=2TJ7pS2c) [### Boston Globe, 'Call and Response examines racism in reproductive health, history' ](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/06/arts/call-response-examines-racism-reproductive-health-history/) June 06, 2023 The frame shifts on a chilling history in “Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology” at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. Focus moves from a once-celebrated white man, J... ![cr.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/cr.jpg?itok=uSryQemI) [### Harvard Crimson, 'Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology' ](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/4/25/a-narrative-of-reverence-to-our-foremothers-in-gynecology-review/) April 25, 2023 The newest exhibit in The Neil L. & Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery at The Hutchins Center is a powerful and impressive curated collection of art dedicated to the memory of Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha, three Black women who were enslaved and medically... ![222501_1363464.jpg.1500x972_q95_crop-smart_upscale.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/222501_1363464.jpg.1500x972_q95_crop-smart_upscale.jpg?itok=Le51-il_) [### WGBH, 'Reframing the disturbing history of gynecology through art' ](https://www.wgbh.org/news/arts-culture/2023/03/30/reframing-the-disturbing-history-of-gynecology-through-art) April 04, 2023 For more than a century, Dr. James Marion Sims was known as the father of American Gynecology, helping found the American Gynecological Association and developing new tools in surgery and women's reproductive health. But behind that is a disturbing... ![download.jpeg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/download.jpeg?itok=GBCq_jhe) [### Harvard Gazette, 'How Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha became foremothers of gynecology' ](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/how-lucy-betsey-and-anarcha-became-foremothers-of-gynecology/) March 30, 2023 Hutchins exhibit centers lives of three enslaved women who underwent unspeakable experiments without anesthesia for J. Marion Sims ![screen_shot_2023-04-03_at_10.26.42_am.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/screen_shot_2023-04-03_at_10.26.42_am.png?itok=_HBCpP1Z) ### Further Reading expand\_more **Books** - *Black and Blue* by John Hoberman - *Killing the Black Body* by Dorothy Roberts - *Medicine and Slavery: The Diseases and Health Care of Blacks in Antebellum Virginia* by Todd L. Savitt - *Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination* by Alondra Nelson - *Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Recreate Race in the Twenty First Century* by Dorothy Roberts - *Superior: The Return of Race and Science* by Angela Saini - *Is Science Racist? Debating Race* by Jonathan Marks - *The Troubled Dream of Genetic Medicine* by Keith Wailoo and Stephen Pemberton - *Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America* by Linda Villarosa, 2023 - *Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology* by Deirdre Cooper Owens, University of Georgia Press, 2018 - *Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present* by Harriet A. Washington, Anchor, 2008 - *Say Anarcha: A Young Woman, A Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women’s Health* by J.C. Hallman, Henry Holt, 2023. Visit the illustrated online archive at . - *The Pain Gap, How Sexism and Racism, in Healthcare Kill Women* by Anushay Hossain, S&S/Simon Element, 2021 - *Henrietta Lacks, The Untold Story*, by Ron Lacks, Bookbaby, 2020 - *The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks*, by Rebecca Skloot, Crown, 2011 - *Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy* by Susan Reverby, University of North Carolina Press, 2009 - *Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison* by Allen M. Hornblum, Routledge, 1999 - *Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America*, Saidiya Hartman, Oxford University Press, 1997 - *Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market*, Harvard University Press, 2001 - *In the Wake: On Blackness and Being*, Christina Sharpe, Duke University Press, 2016 **Documentary Films** - *Remembering Anarcha* directed by Josh Carples, 2021 - [https://rememberinganarcha.com](https://rememberinganarcha.com/) - *Aftershock* directed by Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, 2022 - [https://www.aftershockdocumentary.com](https://www.aftershockdocumentary.com/) **News Articles** - *Why Are Women’s Health Concerns Dismissed So Often?* 1A hosted by Jenn While, NPR, January 4, 2023 - - *Cervical Cancer Kills Black Women at a Disproportionately Higher Rate Than White Women* by Alana White, NPR, January 31, 2022 - - *Labor Pains: The Pain That Is Unlike All Other Pain* by Stephanie H. Murray, The Atlantic, August 12, 2022 - ## Recent Exhibitions [### Vote! ](/vote) ![vote-exhibition-guide-page-1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/vote-exhibition-guide-page-1.jpg?itok=VBh03quM) [### Reclaiming Our Hands: Reclaiming Our Art ](/reclaiming-our-hands-reclaiming-our-art) ![image_6487327-1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/image_6487327-1.jpg?itok=ENqWZ8xj) [### The Extraordinary Commission: Student Activism and the Birth of Afro-American Studies at Harvard ](/extraordinary-commission) ![020.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/hutchins/files/020.jpg?itok=JUeTm9bd)