In May 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black factory worker, suffered a skull fracture and was rushed to the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). Less than 24 hours later, his heart would be removed and transplanted into the chest of a white businessman. The non-consenual surgical extraction of Tucker’s heart prompted America’s first civil lawsuit for the wrongful death of its kind. It also exposed the inherent double standards the country’s medical system applied to its Black patients.

Chip Jones, a Pulitzer Prize nominee and investigative journalist, in his new book, ”The Organ Thieves: The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South” (Gallery/Jeter Publishing), uncovers original archival legal and court documents, as well as eyewitness interviews with physicians, lawyers and journalists who provide the tense details of the last hours of Tucker’s life.