Heidi Downes

When she was just 17, a slave girl called Anarcha was “given” to an ambitious young medic, along with two other slaves named Lucy and Betsey. They were branded “breeders” and forced to undergo torture in the form of gynecological experiments. Statues have been put up in honor of their torturer—the so-called “father of gynecology” James Marion Sims—yet, their names have been expunged from the medical history books.