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VCU Libraries Community Zooms: The Organ Thieves

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Feb. 25, 2021

Pulitzer prize-nominated journalist and author Chip Jones reveals how he took a new look at the first heart transplant at the Medical College of Virginia in 1968 in his new book, “The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South.”

He and Jodi L. Koste, archivist and head, Health Sciences Library Special Collections and Archives, will discuss his three-year-long research project and how it evolved into a close examination of the life and death of a Black man, Bruce Tucker, whose heart was taken from his body without any prior consent in Virginia’s first heart transplant operation in 1968. This led to the nation’s first wrongful death lawsuit over heart transplantation brought by a young Black trial lawyer named L. Douglas Wilder. Jones and Koste also will discuss the background of the organ transplant program at MCV and the community context in which it developed.

In partnership with the Virginia Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. This session is a part of the series In Conversation: Nourishing Community Transformation, a series of VCU Libraries Community Zooms events sponsored by and organized with the input of the Friends of VCU Libraries, featuring speakers from the Richmond, Virginia, community discussing social justice, innovation, health and the evolution of the greater Richmond area.

Attendees may join via Zoom. To receive a link to join the sessions, or for questions or accommodations, please contact the VCU Libraries Development Office at libdevelop@vcu.edu.

Learn more.

Location

Zoom

Contact

Gregory Kimbrell
kimbrellgg@vcu.edu
(804) 393-2951

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