The Organ Thieves
The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South
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Narrated by:
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JD Jackson
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By:
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Chip Jones
About this listen
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks meets Get Out in this “startling...powerful” (Kirkus Reviews) investigation of racial inequality at the core of the heart transplant race.
In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.
The circumstances surrounding his death reflect the long legacy of mistreating African Americans that began more than a century before with cadaver harvesting and worse. It culminated in efforts to win the heart transplant race in the late 1960s. Featuring years of research and fresh reporting, along with a foreword from social justice activist Ben Jealous, “this powerful book weaves together a medical mystery, a legal drama, and a sweeping history, its characters confronting unprecedented issues of life and death under the shadows of centuries of racial injustice” (Edward L. Ayers, author of The Promise of the New South).
©2020 Chip Jones. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 arrived in New York City. Before long, America’s largest metropolis was at war against a virus that mercilessly swept through its five boroughs. In The Desperate Hours, award-winning journalist Marie Brenner, having been granted unprecedented 18-month access to the entire New York-Presbyterian hospital system, tells the story of the doctors, nurses, residents, researchers, and suppliers who tried to save lives across Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn and the northern periphery of the city.
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Way too much politics
- By Josh on 07-18-22
By: Marie Brenner
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The Good Death
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- By: Ann Neumann
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the death of her father, journalist and hospice volunteer Ann Neumann sets out to examine what it means to die well in the United States. When Ann Neumann's father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, she left her job and moved back to her hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She became his full-time caregiver - cooking, cleaning, and administering medications. When her father died, she was undone by the experience, by grief and the visceral quality of dying.
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Ugh, so boring
- By Maranto on 05-13-19
By: Ann Neumann
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Teeth
- The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America
- By: Mary Otto
- Narrated by: Suehyla El'Attar
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Teeth takes listeners on a disturbing journey into America's silent epidemic of oral disease, exposing the hidden connections between tooth decay and stunted job prospects, low educational achievement, social mobility, and the troubling state of our public health.
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Content everyone should know; dismal narration
- By Elaine on 08-04-17
By: Mary Otto
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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Charlatan
- America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him and the Age of Flimflam
- By: Pope Brock
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
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This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.
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nix the narrator
- By susan nenadic on 02-08-09
By: Pope Brock
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Sometimes People Die
- By: Simon Stephenson
- Narrated by: Greg Miller Burns
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Returning to practice after a suspension for stealing opioids, a young doctor takes the only job he can find: a post as a physician at the struggling St. Luke's Hospital in east London. Amid the maelstrom of sick patients, overworked staff and underfunded wards, a more insidious secret soon declares itself: too many patients are dying. And a murderer may be lurking in plain sight.
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If you’re going to read this, the audio narration makes it
- By Abigail Segal on 12-25-22
By: Simon Stephenson
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Five Days at Memorial
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- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
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- Unabridged
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After Hurricane Katrina struck and power failed, amid rising floodwaters and heat, exhausted staff at Memorial Medical Center designated certain patients last for rescue. Months later, a doctor and two nurses were arrested and accused of injecting some of those patients with life-ending drugs.
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Five Days in Hell/Years in Purgatory
- By Cynthia on 09-15-13
By: Sheri Fink
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Furious Hours
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- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the 1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted—thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the reverend. Casey Cep brings this story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South.
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Great book, needs a Southern narrator
- By Joseph Wu on 06-06-19
By: Casey Cep
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Jane Crow
- The Life of Pauli Murray
- By: Rosalind Rosenberg
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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A mixed-race orphan, Murray grew up in segregated North Carolina before escaping to New York, where she attended Hunter College and became a labor activist in the 1930s. When she applied to graduate school at the University of North Carolina, where her white great-great-grandfather had been a trustee, she was rejected because of her race. She went on to graduate first in her class at Howard Law School, only to be rejected for graduate study again at Harvard University this time on account of her sex. Undaunted, Murray forged a singular career in the law.
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What a legacy!!!
- By Paul on 03-08-21
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Viral Justice
- How We Grow the World We Want
- By: Ruha Benjamin
- Narrated by: Ruha Benjamin
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing groundbreaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, Viral Justice is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.
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Fantastic book!
- By Avie Kearney on 05-21-23
By: Ruha Benjamin
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One Day
- The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
- By: Gene Weingarten
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day - chosen completely at random - was Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, and much more....
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I'm giving this book more credit for its concept
- By J. F. Boyd on 12-24-19
By: Gene Weingarten
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What listeners say about The Organ Thieves
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- CC
- 05-13-22
Fascinating! Must read
Fascinating! Must read book about the origins of medical school, organ transplant, and the development of medical ethics. The subtitle says it all- truly a shocking story about race and defining death.
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- VA hiker
- 10-24-22
Pretty interesting
Pretty well written, highlighting various interesting parts of the social and medical world in the past.
It's definitely hard to hear (especially as a healthcare provider) that any human would be mistreated in the hospital in any way, but I guess that's the point.
The narrator's voice is lovely but he has an odd cadence, even when not quoting.
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- Cate F.
- 03-14-22
Shameful History in detail
I just listened to The Organ Thieves for a book circle here in Richmond, Virginia. Two years ago my life was saved by surgeons at VCU Hospital, not long after a dying 26 year old friend received a new heart. I’ve lived in Richmond since 1976 with a vague awareness of some of this horrible history.The death of Bruce Tucker was unknown until I read the book. I’m unsurprised at the ongoing lack of greater acknowledgment of the callous treatment of so many human beings of color. JD Jackson is an excellent narrator.
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- Cynthia T Sullivan
- 09-24-22
Historical truth in medicine
Fascinating and horrifying truth, explosive, especially for those who know MCV and its history and current status.
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- C Felisbret
- 05-10-23
Touching Story with context through the years
I would have like to think that this story was the result of someone’s vivid and twisted imagination but it wasn’t. It’s a story about facts and America’s shameful medical mistreatment of black people. Unfortunately it is only a small portion of why medical professions face the challenge of obtaining the trust of black communities. There is still so much work to be done but if we don’t recognize the wrongs of the past we are certainly bound to repeat it.
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-20-24
life changing
takes a bit of patience to get through the whole thing due to the length and the somewhat technical subjects of law and medical sciences and the history of both fields. But it is explained well, in simple terms that are clear to understand regardless of your educational background or personal knowledge. This is one of those few books that will forever leave a heavy impression on me. well done. well researched.
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- Taminator
- 04-22-23
Shameful, horrific, and eye opening.
The story breaks down organ transplant history and the participants involved to give backstory and greater clarity to the people behind the choices, politics, actions, secrets and racism. The story teller had a soothing voice but at the same time seemed to lack inflection. I'd be willing to hear him on another story that had different context.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-30-24
Important story but bad performance
The story was important but at times sterile. The voice reading was monotonous unfortunately and took away from the work.
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- Bianca S
- 11-22-20
Not your story to tell
I have mixed feelings about an author who writes someone else's story for profit without buy in from the subject or the subject's family.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Tammye
- 01-17-21
False Advertising
If Bruce Tucker had been the one who needed the heart and Joseph Klett was the potential donor I am absolutely sure Humes and Lower would have done a lot more to locate his family before removing his heart/organs to transplant into a black man. This is the reason why minorities who were living during this period and are still around don’t fully trust doctors. These people got away with breaking the law, stealing organs and the law failed to punish them for their crimes. This story is very disturbing but that is not why I gave this book only 2-1/2 stars. I did that because of the false advertising. The title is The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South but only about 10% of the book is devoted to that topic and other 90% is the history of organs transplant.
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1 person found this helpful