Protest at J. Marion Sims Statue

This image shows protestors demanding that New York City remove a statue honoring J. Marion Sims. In the nineteenth century, Sims, a white doctor from Alabama, performed dozens of experimental gynecological surgeries on enslaved women without anesthesia. Sims also compelled enslaved women to assist him in his medical experimentation as well as serve as subjects of the experiments. A statue of Sims stood in New York’s Central Park, across from the New York Academy of Medicine, for over a century, showing the enduring esteem granted to Sims by his professional colleagues. After years of protests, in 2018 the statue was removed.

Source: Howard Simmons/New York Daily News, August 20, 2017, https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/protesters-slam-nyc-statue-doctor-experimented-slaves-article-1.3426690.