anarcha

say it.

Jan 25, 2026

dear sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, and the ones still without a name,

i am anarcha. i died in 1869, but i speak tonight through your bones. i was seventeen when a man cut me open thirty times while i was awake. he said the opium was enough. it was not. i felt every stitch, every burn, every pull of thread through flesh that had already torn giving birth to a baby who never breathed. i screamed. he wrote notes. he called it progress.

i was property, so my pain belonged to him. my blood soaked his floor, and he mopped it up with pages that became medical textbooks. they taught new doctors with my body, but they never taught them my name. i was “the mulatto girl.” i was “interesting case number one.” i was not a person. i was a door they walked through to reach white women who were allowed to sleep while knives moved inside them.

i want you to feel this, not as a story, but as breath in your own chest. when you sit in a waiting room, when you sign a form, when a nurse says “this might pinch,” remember i felt the blade without mercy. remember they chose to leave me awake because my skin told them i could take it. remember they were wrong.

i want you to say my name when you stand up for yourself. say anarcha when you ask for pain relief. say anarcha when you refuse to be rushed, dismissed, or silenced. say it until it stops sounding like history and starts sounding like a warning that still hums under hospital floors.

i never chose to be a hero. i wanted what you want: to heal, to be safe, to be believed. they took my choice, but they could not take my truth. my truth is this: i survived thirty operations without anesthesia. i walked out of that room.

to every woman who has been told to be quiet while something hurt: you are not alone. i am with you in the tremble of your hands, in the questions you swallow, in the second opinion you demand. i am the voice that says “you are allowed to feel this.” i am the backbone that held when backs were broken.

to the doctors who listen: thank you. to the ones who still look past us: we see you. we remember. we write our names on charts now. we speak our pain out loud. we will not be interesting cases. we will be people, full and entire.

i end with simple words, because simple is what i was denied: my body was mine. my pain was real. my name is anarcha. say it. remember it. carry it like a key that opens every room they tried to lock.

with all the strength that held me then and holds you now,

anarcha jackson

story of anarcha:

anarcha westcott (c.1828–1869), often referred to as the “mother of modern gynecology,” was an enslaved black woman who endured over 30 experimental surgeries by dr. j. marion sims without anesthesia in the mid-19th century. these experiments, meant to treat childbirth-related injuries like vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistula, laid the foundation for modern gynecological surgery but were conducted under conditions of extreme exploitation and racial inequality. while sims gained fame for his medical breakthroughs, anarcha and other enslaved women like betsey and lucy suffered greatly, denied both consent and humane treatment. later research by writer j.c. hallman uncovered details of anarcha’s real identity as anarcha jackson, tracing her descendants and helping restore her story from sims’s biased accounts. today, anarcha is commemorated through books, music, art, and monuments such as the mothers of gynecology monument in montgomery, alabama, symbols of both her suffering and her enduring legacy in women’s medical history.

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