New Alabama monument honors slaves subjected to experiments

A new monument in Alabama is dedicated to three Black women who were forced to undergo experimental surgery during the the 19th century.

The statue, named “Mothers of Gynecology,” features images of Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey, who were operated on by J. Marion Sims, a doctor largely credited as a medical pioneer for his developments in gynecology despite conducting experimental surgery without anesthesia on Black female slaves, The Associated Press reports. The statue’s title is a nod to Sims’s moniker as the “Father of Gynecology.” 

“The endeavor is to change the narrative as it relates to the history and how it’s portrayed regarding Sims and the women that were used as experiments,” Michelle Browder, who created the monument, told the AP. “They’re not mentioned in any of the iconography or the information, the markers.” 

Browder told the AP that she believes the statue is important to reflecting the full history behind medical advancements in gynecology and the sacrifices of Black female slaves.  

“No one talks about these women and their sacrifices and the experimentations that they suffered,” Browder continued to the AP. “And so I feel that if you’re going to tell the truth about this history, we need to tell it all.”

New York City officials voted to take down a statue of Sims in Central Park in 2018 and moved it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Sims is buried. 

A statue of the doctor remains at the Alabama State House in Montgomery, according to the AP.