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The Story Of A Forced Heart Donation In The Segregated South

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It should be a story from a horror novel: a man goes into the hospital with a head injury and dies there, after having his heart removed for another man.

But it's not fiction, it's Virginia, in the United States, in 1968. And the man who lost his heart and his life was Black, while the heart recipient was white.

Chip Jones, a longtime Virginia journalist, tells the story in The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South.

He gives the details of the story of Bruce Tucker and his lost heart, and the larger story of medicine and society, in a visit with the Exchange.

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The Jefferson Exchange is Jefferson Public Radio's daily news program focused on issues, people and events across Southern Oregon and Northern California. Natalie Golay is the program's senior producer, Charlie Zimmermann is the assistant producer, and Mike Green hosts the show.