The University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Center for Health Equity, and Program in Health Disparities Research are pleased to host the first in a series of Community Dialogues on Clinical Research with Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Washington will speak about her work and host a dialogue aimed at identifying constructive ways for communities and researchers to work together to improve health.

Thursday, February 21

5:00 pm Lecture and Community Discussion

6:30 pm Book Signing, hosted by Common Good Books

Wilder Center, 451 Lexington Parkway North, St. Paul

Registration required

About Harriet Washington

Harriet Washington is an award-winning medical writer and editor, and the author of the best-selling book, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. In her work, she focuses mainly upon bioethics, history of medicine, African American health issues and the intersection of medicine, ethics and culture. 

Medical Apartheid, the first social history of medical research with African Americans, was chosen as one of Publishers’ Weekly Best Books of 2006. The book also won the National Book Critics Circle Nonfiction Award, a PEN award, 2007 Gustavus Myers Award, and Nonfiction Award of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. 

Washington wrote Medical Apartheid while she was a Research Fellow in Ethics at Harvard Medical School. She has worked as a Page One editor for USA Today, as a science editor for metropolitan dailies and several national magazines, and her award-winning medical writing. Her work has appeared in Health, Emerge and Psychology Today, as well as such academic publications as the Harvard Public Health Review, the Harvard AIDS Review, Nature, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The American Journal of Public Health and the New England Journal of Medicine. Her awards include the Congressional Black Caucus Beacon of Light Award, two awards from the National Association of Black Journalists and a Unity Award from Emerge. She is the founding Editor of The Harvard Journal of Minority Public Health and has presented her work at universities in the U.S. and abroad. 

Ms. Washington has taught at venues that include New School University, SUNY, the Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, Harvard School of Public Health and Tuskegee University. She has sat on the boards of many organizations, including The Young Women’s Christian Association, the School Health Advisory Board of the Monroe County Department of Health and the Journal of the National Medical Association, to name a few. 

Ms. Washington has also worked as a laboratory technician, as a medical social worker, as the manager of a poison-control center/suicide hotline, and has performed as an oboist and as a classical-music announcer for WXXI-FM, a PBS affiliate in Rochester, N.Y. She lives in New York City with her husband Ron DeBose.