A man falls, sustains a head injury and becomes an early organ donor --- without him or his family having had any consultation. The man is black, the organ is his heart, and the recipient and surgeons are all white. It is 1968 in Virginia. This is the wrenchingly bleak truth around which award-winning journalist and author Chip Jones has built this stirring, minute-by-minute saga.

Bruce Tucker took a fall at his worksite, an egg-processing plant, after hours on a pleasant Friday afternoon. Rushed to the Medical College of Virginia, he was unresponsive. Soon afterward he was pronounced dead, and two doctors --- Richard Lower and David Hume --- seized this opportunity to perform a heart transplant. This radical new surgery was in its nascent phase, and, with a white patient needing a new heart, they were anxious to count their work among the early successes. Meanwhile, Bruce’s brother William heard of his injury, but attempts to reach the hospital by phone were futile, and the only news he received was hours later: Bruce was dead. A visit to the funeral home told the story: Bruce was missing both his heart and his kidneys. A week later, the heart recipient died.

"...[a] stirring, minute-by-minute saga.... [Jones'] well-considered book has the power to open and change minds, and it ought to be widely read."

Four years later, the case went to trial, a suit initiated by the outrage of William Tucker and the willingness of a rising attorney, L. Douglas Wilder, who would become America’s first elected African American governor, to take the case. The findings fell in favor of MCV and its practitioners, and the Tucker family never received a penny of compensation. 

The issue central to the trial was critical at the time: What is the proper medical definition of death? It had been assayed before and would continue to change over time as medical science advanced and life-saving techniques became more sophisticated. But for “a black man with liquor on his breath” in Virginia in 1968, the definition seemed to be simple enough: He was already dead; harvest his heart.

Jones has sifted through these events with great care, looking at all players, every side issue, and later results and fallout. He also explores the medical history of southern states, where culling body parts from slaves and former slaves was common practice, as a shocking discovery in 1994 revealed that skulls and other remains identified as African American were jammed down an old well on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. Doubtless, as in the case of Bruce Tucker, no permission had been sought, no questions asked about these lost black humans giving their lives and bodies for the furtherance of white education. 

Jones has brought all these matters to light at a time when considerations of white and black mutuality and understanding are at the forefront of American consciousness on a daily basis. His well-considered book has the power to open and change minds, and it ought to be widely read.