SLCL’s Black History Celebration Presents Dr. Uché Blackstock

St. Louis County Library’s Black History Celebration is pleased to host a special event with Dr, Uché Blackstock, author of “Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine.” The event will take place on Thursday, February 15, 7:00 p.m. at the Florissant Valley Branch, 195 New Florissant Rd. S., St. Louis, MO 63031.

The event is presented by the Arthur Gale Medical Arts Lecture Series. Books will be available for purchase at the event from EyeSeeMe .

Dr. Blackstock will be in conversation with Dr. Jovita Oruwari, oncologic surgeon and author of “Black Girls in White Coats.”

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock that she would be anything but a physician. In the 1980s, her mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and Uché watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives.

What Dr. Blackstock did not understand as a child—or learn about at Harvard Medical School—were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face.

“Legacy” is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, “Legacy” is Dr. Blackstock’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Dr. Uché Blackstock is a physician and thought leader on bias and racism in health care. She is the founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, appears regularly on MSNBC and NBC News, and is a former associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the former faculty director for the Office of Diversity Affairs at NYU School of Medicine.

Sponsored by Ameren and the St. Louis County Library Foundation, the theme for the library’s 2024 Black History Celebration is “African American Arts: Inspiring, Impacting and Influencing Every Generation.” A complete list of Black History events is available at www.slcl.org/black-history-celebration. 

Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.