Left of Black Presents: Small Talk at FHI with Author Maria Smilios

“Vivid…[An] indelible portrait of an era when this untreatable bane killed one American every 11 minutes… [A] book that deserves reading and remembering in the pandemic age.” —The New York Times Book Review

New York City in 1929 was a hotbed for the rampant disease tuberculosis, or TB, that claimed one in seven lives in the U.S. alone. Many sought the refuge of sanatoriums, or specialty hospitals, to treat the deadly virus, also known by its other name, “the consumption.” Ground zero in New York for TB was Sea View Hospital in Staten Island. But with more jobs opening up to women, from cashiers to stenographers to switchboard operators, the White nurses at Sea View gradually left for less risky work. In the wake of this staff fallout, city officials reached out to Black nurses in the South by offering them an escape from Jim Crow with better pay. These nurses, dubbed by the dying patients of Sea View as “Black Angels,” became crucial to the discovery of a cure of the killer sickness while desegregating the New York City hospital system. Their silenced story is now brought to light with the new book, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, a dynamic debut by author Maria Smilios.

“Smilios is a rare combination of rigorous scientist and an exquisite writer…” -The Lancet

On Thursday, October 24th , from 6:30 to 8pm, Smilios will join Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, the creator and host of the Webby Award-nominated series Left of Black, to discuss her new book, her writing process, and the African American nurses who helped changed medical history.

Maria Smilios is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and adjunct lecturer at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She was born and raised in New York City. She holds a Master of Arts in American literature and religion from Boston University where she was a Luce and Presidential scholar. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Narratively, The Forward, Lit Hub, Writers Digest, The Emancipator, and other publications.

The Black Angels won the 2024 Christopher Award in literature, which celebrates works that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit." It was also a finalist for the prestigious Gotham Book Prize and chosen as an NPR Science Friday Summer Read for 2024.

This public event will take place at the Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall John Hope Franklin located at Smith Warehouse, Bay 4, 114 South Buchanan Blvd. in Durham. Copies of both of The Black Angels will be distributed to the first 25 attendees of the event. Register here: ___________

“Left of Black Presents: Small Talk at FHI,” is a new event sub-series inspired by the legendary jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron’s first album, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox. It is an attempt to recreate the same type of intimacy ever present in Scott-Heron’s groundbreaking work. Named after famed African American historian John Hope Franklin, the FHI became the institutional home of the web series in 2019 during its 10th season.

Host or Publisher Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University