# Opening Reception, 'Call and Response: A Narrative of Reverence to Our Foremothers in Gynecology' #### calendar\_today Date and Time **March 30, 2023** 06:00PM - 08:00PM EDT #### pin\_drop Location **Neil L. and Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery at the Hutchins Center, 104 Mount Auburn Street, Floor 3R, Cambridge, MA** *In conjunction with this event, the [Cooper Gallery](https://coopergallery.fas.harvard.edu/) will be open until 8:30pm* **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 PlattCo-sponsored with the Resilient Sisterhood Project and curated by Dell Marie Hamilton** 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. **Further Reading** **Books** *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 **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 ![Jules Arthur, “Mothers of Gynecology”, Mixed-media painting, 2019](/sites/g/files/omnuum10831/files/hutchins/files/mothers-of-gynecology-web.jpg) Jules Arthur“Mothers of Gynecology”Mixed-media painting, 2019 Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/node/1448203/event-feed.ics) Copy link link