Atlanta

Hey ATL Black Everywhere! I went to a fun range for the first time and think I might be hooked. Before I go searching the interwebs, do you know anyone in our community offering gun safety courses?

Her name was Anarcha Westcott. You won’t find her in history books, but her suffering shaped modern medicine. Anarcha was just 17 years old; she was enslaved and had just given birth.

The birth left her body torn and wounded. She was in agony, bleeding, and in desperate need of care. Instead of receiving care, Anarcha was taken to a doctor, not to help her but to use her. His name was Dr. J. Marion Sims.

Today, some call him the father of modern gynecology. He didn’t see Anarcha as a girl or as a human being. He saw her as an experiment. He performed over 30 surgeries on her without anesthesia, without her consent, and without mercy. She screamed through every cut. Her body was opened again and again. Her pain was ignored because she was a slave.

Her body became the foundation for tools, techniques, and procedures used…

At times, the cycle greets us with joy and anticipation; at others, it confronts us with fear and uncertainty. We advance, or we withdraw. Yet always, within the quiet order of things, we are drawn back into the circle. For life is a cycle, a precept eternal, and in its endless turning, we learn to obey its hidden wisdom.