(South Boston) — An immortal Southside legend now has a new way to be remembered.
Officials in South Boston this weekend unveiled a statue of Henrietta Lacks on the 71st anniversary of her death. The life-size statue sits at Constitution Square in South Boston, strategically facing her hometown of Clover, to the north.
Lacks was born in Roanoke, but grew up in Clover. She died of cervical cancer in 1951 at the age of 31. Her cancerous cells were extracted in a biopsy at Johns Hopkins. But instead of dying, those cells multiplied and they still multiply today.
The so-called “HeLa” cells helped develop the polio vaccine, in-vitro fertilization, and were used in research on COVID-19 vaccines.
Last year, Roanoke unveiled a statue in what’s now called Lacks Plaza. She was the subject of the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” It is being made into a movie under the direction of Oprah Winfrey.
The group that erected the South Boston statue raised 125-thousand dollars for their project.