Quicklet on Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was a beautiful African American woman who always painted her toenails red. She loved to dance. She had a big laugh and mischievous eyes. She had five children whom she loved with every inch of her soul. No one knows what her favorite color was.

Henrietta Lacks was full life, but she died in 1951, her body consumed by tumors that had started in her cervix. She was buried in an unmarked grave and even though she was greatly loved, no one talked much about Henrietta after she died. The winds of time would have quickly swept away all signs of this vivacious woman had it not been for one thing: her cells were immortal.