In May 25, 1968, African American factory worker Bruce Tucker arrived in the emergency ward at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) with head injuries that would prove fatal. When his dead body was later sent to the funeral home, it would be missing its heart. Since the mid-1960s, the heart transplant race had transfixed the international medical scene. Enter Dr. Richard Lower and Dr. David Hume, two transplant pioneers at MCV. The day Tucker was admitted into the hospital, they saw an opportunity to make history. So, without permission from any family member, Tucker's heart was taken from his body and put into the chest of a successful white businessman. Four years later, future first African American governor L. Douglas Wilder, then just a young attorney, faced off in court against those same transplant pioneers. Richly researched and compellingly told, The Organ Thieves is a cautionary tale about the human price of progress, scientific ambition, and the pursuit of professional fame. Book jacket.