Civil Rights, Fannie Lou Hamer, Black Women and Hysterectomy

Fannie Lou Hamer after Beating

I found this by accident on Wikipedia while looking up something else. Fannie Lou Hamer, who later became a reknowned Civil Rights leader, was given a hysterectomy at the age of 32 in order to prevent her from producing children.

If you don't know what happened to Hamer during the voter registration drives of the 1960s, what the police did to her, you really need to.  So please google her name.

Hamer had gone into hospital to have a tumour removed, and during that surgery, the hysterectomy was performed without her consent. This is just another way Black women's reproduction has been controlled by the authorities for generations.

If you have listened to my Cancer Journals, you know that I had a hysterectomy last year as a result of my diagnosis of ovarian cancer. Prior to that, when I was still of childbearing age, two different doctors at two different London hospitals try to force me to have a hysterectomy.

Hamer's surgery was performed in 1961 and she later coined the phrase “Mississippi appendectomy” because this practice was very established as a way of removing and preventing Black women's ability to reproduce. So this tactic, which was common in Mississippi in the early 1960s, was still being employed in London in the 1980s and '90s. I was never given any good reason or explanation for why I should undergo this surgery until my cancer diagnosis last year.

Experiments on Black women formed the basis of gynecology. For more about this, see: 

Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology.  

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Click here for my Cancer Journals. And remember, Black Lives Matter. 

Go here for more Black history blog posts.   

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Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology

As you may know, the speculum was developed via experiments performed on enslaved Black women.

Dr. Marion Sims, who conducted many of these experiments, has been called the “father of modern gynecology” and is credited with inventing the speculum. 

Meanwhile, the enslaved Black women on whom he experimented have largely been forgotten. They were experimented on without anaesthesia and without dignity, and some of them died under his “care”. 

Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey were three such women whose names we should, we must, recall.

Just part of the history of how Black women's bodies have been treated in the name of “healthcare".   

Click here for an excellent NPR show, Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology.

See also: Black Women Sue Johnson & Johnson over Ovarian Cancer.

Please share this with your networks and please leave your comments below.  Thanks. 

Cancer Journal 8: A Healing Process

Angry Black Woman

Is there a link between anger and cancer?  Listen below. 

You can always tell when a Black woman is angry.  And we have plenty of reasons to be angry.  Sometimes we have to fight to get the healthcare we want, need and deserve. 

As I said here, I have experienced a lot of anger in my life. 

Click here for more Cancer Journals.

Check Out Books Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Zhana21 on BlogTalkRadio

  

Our History, Our Healing

One reason why I post about Black history so much on Ancestral Energies is that the more we understand our history, the better equipped we are to create a better future.

Black people, like many oppressed groups, sometimes have a tendency to blame ourselves and each other for our problems.

Difficult and painful images of Africa flood our TV screens, but the historical context for these issues is seldom given.

The more we understand the history of Africa under colonisation, the more we can begin to understand why African people are in the position we are in - both on the continent and all over the Diaspora.

We need to understand that wherever we are in the world, African people are facing many of the same challenges.

And we need to understand why - this is an essential part of our healing process.

Click here for my blog on the Black history film The First Grader, which explores the history of British colonisation in Africa.

See also: Why We Need to Heal.

Why We Need to Heal Part 2

Continuing the series on Why People of African Heritage Need to Heal and Transform Ourselves, Our Families, Our Communities and Our World.

Click here for Part 2 - The effects of miseducation on us and our children, how we are taught to hate ourselves and each other, and much more.

Click here if you missed Part 1.

Please leave your comments here.