HeLa and the local library

I immensely enjoyed this book. I also enjoyed Rebecca Skloot's lecture to a great extent. I do, however have more questions that were not addressed in this book. For  instance, what is up with the local library in the town where the Lacks's live? Do they have many other materials that can or could aid Deborah Lacks and her family in finding more information about HeLa and what it was, where it has been and what that means to the world? There was a few sentences about Rebecca being taken to the local library by Miss Courtney Speed. Skloot was lucky enough to speak with Miss Speed when she drove to Turners Station hoping to visit the family. Miss Speed took her to the library and checked out a book for Rebecca to watch at Speed's Beauty Parlor. Obviously, from this part of the text, the local library was holding at least one important record which is the tape of the show the BBC produced about Henrietta and her cells. Rebecca was made to sit down and watch it but does not really tell us what she learned from it.

Libraries become, in some ways and some places, the keepers of local history. How important is this? How could the library have helped the Lacks family more than they did. I realize that many of the issues were just recently discovered when Rebecca researched them and compiled them but there was information out there available to the family, wasn't there? I guess my whole point in writing about this, is to say how important it is for the local libraries in places like Turner Station to keep track and make their patrons aware of what goes on or went on in their communities.

Obviously I enjoyed other parts of the books as well. Really, the thing that I enjoyed the most was Rebeccas' truthfulness in telling the perceptions she had of meeting the family and friends of Henrietta. She really did need to be a part of this story, because she was. As she said at the book lecture, Deborah told her that there were issues which she had access to because she was white, not just despite it. Anything else that she needed to know, people who were not white told her. She has written a truly remarkable book and I have been bragging about it to everyone I encounter since I have read it. I was really blown away by this one!