What Happened When Oprah Talked To Black Female Writers About Henrietta Lacks

On a sunny April morning in New York City, the cast of the upcoming HBO film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks gathered at the London Hotel to talk to a room of reporters, myself included. There was a tangible electricity in the air, both because we were all anticipating the arrival of Oprah Winfrey and Tony award-winning director George Wolfe, but another immediately obvious reason: All nine of us in the room were Black women. Not one of us had ever attended a work event where...