Meet the Cast
Henrietta Lacks
Prettiest Girl in TownMost of what we know about Henrietta is basic stuff. She lost her mother when she was four and grew up in extreme poverty in rural segregated Virginia. She left school in the...
Deborah "Dale" Lacks
Look at Little SisterWhile big bro Lawrence may be the "Big Kahuna" of the Lacks family, the will and power to uncover Henrietta's story lies with Deborah. The only surviving daughter and fourth ch...
David "Day" Lacks
Don't JudgeDavid lacks is the Henrietta's first cousin and the father of her children. They shared a bedroom when they were young kids and had their first child when she was 14. He married Henriett...
Zakariyya Bari Abdul Rahman (born Joe Lacks)
Lost Mother, Lost ChildZakariyya is the fifth and youngest of Henrietta's children. After the death of his mother, Baby Joe nearly dies of tuberculosis and soon finds himself in the care of a cousi...
Elsie Lacks (born Lucille Elsie Pleasant)
A Beautiful ChildHenrietta and Day's second child is little more than a few pictures in the Lacks family memory. Deborah doesn't even learn about Elsie's existence until well after her older sister...
Bobbette Lacks
Surrogate Mom, Full-Time NinjaWe can't help cheering when Lawrence's wife, Bobbette, insists that they take in and raise the younger Lacks siblings to get them out of the clutches of the abusive Et...
Lawrence Lacks
The Big KahunaLawrence is the guy you want on your side: he's the big brother who has good stories to tell (fake I.D. for pool hall gets him drafted? Win!) and who's ready to sift through your acqu...
David Jr. "Sonny" Lacks
Middle ChildWe don't see very much of Sonny in the book. Though he's Skloot's most solid contact with the Lacks family in the beginning of her search for info, Deborah quickly takes over that role....
Sadie and Margaret Sturdivant
BFFsThese ladies are Henrietta's cousins and her confidantes. It's to Sadie and Margaret that Henrietta shares the secret problem of the "knot" on her womb. She shows them the charred skin on her b...
Gladys Lacks
Although Gladys isn't emotionally close to her sister Henrietta, she does believe in family. And family sticks by your side during the worst times of your life. In Gladys' mind, one of those bad ti...
Gary Lacks
Preacher ManDeborah's charismatic cousin (Gladys' son) provides spiritual comfort for Deborah when she's feeling overwhelmed by the distressing news from Crownsville about her sister's miserable li...
Ethel and Galen
If George Gey is the villain for the Lacks family on the scientific side of things, Ethel and cousin Galen fill that role on the personal side. After Henrietta's death, Ethel and Galen move in with...
Hector "Cootie" Henry
Henrietta's cousin is the first of the Lacks Town family members that Skloot meets in 1999 when she wanders into Clover hoping to learn something. He gives a loving account of Henrietta, who he ado...
Rebecca Skloot
More Than She Bargained For?On her website, Rebecca Skloot tells readers that she never intended to wind up as a character in her book on Henrietta's life. She wanted it to be about the Lacks famil...
George and Margaret Gey
A Man of Vision—And EccentricitiesGeorge Gey was the head of tissue culture at Johns Hopkins when Henrietta was being treated for cervical cancer. Gey had been actively trying to grow an immortal...
Mary Kubicek
Mary Kubicek may not have been as eccentric or as brilliant as her boss George Gey, but this lab assistant is the one who actually makes the first HeLa cultures happen. When she receives Henrietta'...
Howard Jones
Jones is the gynecologist who first reviews Henrietta's medical history and examines her tumor, which he described as nothing like anything he'd ever seen before. He stood by that assessment even a...
Victor McKusick
Victor McKusick was a geneticist who worked at Johns Hopkins and worked with blood samples taken from Henrietta Lacks' children and husband. He may have been a brilliant scientist, but he wasn't to...
Christoph Lengauer
Lengauer is our science superhero. His respect in reaching out to the family—of meeting their desire to truly understand their mother's contribution to science—models the kind of compassionate...
Courtney "Mama" Speed
When Rebecca Skloot finally finds Speed's Grocery in Turner Station, she learns of Courtney Speed's reputation as a community activist and the social glue of the neighborhood. One of Courtney's "so...