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Character analysis

David 'Day' Lacks

in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

David "Day" Lacks is Henrietta's husband and the head of the Lacks family. A tobacco farmer from Clover, Virginia, he moves the family to Baltimore to find work at Bethlehem Steel. Day is a man of few words, shaped by the rural Southern environment of his youth—a place where Black families often viewed doctors and institutions with suspicion. When Henrietta becomes seriously ill with cervical cancer, Day takes her to Johns Hopkins, the only local hospital that treated Black patients. However, he mostly remains passive in his dealings with the medical staff, never fully grasping what is happening to her or her cells. He signs consent forms without understanding their significance, a detail that Skloot uses to highlight the failures of informed consent. After Henrietta's death in 1951, Day raises their five children alone, leaning on relatives and battling poverty. He comes across as emotionally reserved; he rarely talks about Henrietta and spends decades saying little about HeLa cells, partly due to ignorance and partly because of his grief. In his later years, he opens up his home to Rebecca Skloot and shares memories, albeit reluctantly, providing important early insights. Day's journey reflects the larger experience of the Lacks family: exploitation without understanding, loss without closure, and a quiet dignity in the face of institutional neglect.

About this character

Form
Non-fiction
Author
Rebecca Skloot
First published
2010

The person01–03

01·Who they are

Who is David 'Day' Lacks?

David "Day" Lacks enters Rebecca Skloot's narrative as a quiet, weathered man shaped by tobacco fields, racial segregation, and the particular silence of Southern Black men who learned early that institutions were not built to protect them. Born and raised in Clover, Virginia, Day migrated north to Baltimore to work at Bethlehem Steel—a common trajectory for Black Southerners of the mid-twentieth century chasing industrial wages. He is not formally educated, and Skloot presents him as someone for whom written documents, hospital procedures, and scientific language occupy an almost foreign world. His defining characteristic is not ignorance, however, but a stoic guardedness: Day observes, endures, and rarely volunteers more than circumstances demand. By the time Skloot arrives at his door decades after Henrietta's death, he is an old man still carrying losses he has never found language for.

02·Arc & motivation

What is David 'Day' Lacks's arc and motivation?

Day's arc is less a transformation than a slow, reluctant opening. At the book's start—in retrospect through Skloot's research—he is a husband navigating Henrietta's frightening illness with the tools available to him: getting her to Johns Hopkins, the only local hospital treating Black patients, and trusting the institution to do what institutions are supposed to do. His signing of consent forms without understanding their significance is not a single dramatic moment but a quiet systemic failure; Skloot uses it to indict a medical culture that never considered explaining itself to patients like Henrietta or families like Day's.

After Henrietta's death in 1951, Day's motivation becomes survival. He raises five children largely alone, in poverty, leaning on cousins and neighbors. There is no philosophical awakening, no activist response to what happened to Henrietta's cells—Day simply does not know enough to rage, and by the time his family learns the scope of HeLa's commercialization, grief and distrust have calcified around the wound. His later willingness to speak with Skloot signals not resolution but a tired generosity; he lets her in because, at his age, holding the door shut takes effort he no longer has.

03·Key moments

What are David 'Day' Lacks's key moments?

  • Signing the consent forms at Johns Hopkins: Day authorizes Henrietta's treatment and, without meaningful explanation from medical staff, effectively permits the use of her cells. Skloot frames this as the hinge on which the entire ethical argument of the book turns—not malice on Day's part, but a system that never imagined his understanding mattered.
  • Sending Elsie to Crownsville State Hospital: While Henrietta is still alive, Day agrees to institutionalize their disabled daughter Elsie. The decision, made under conditions of poverty and limited alternatives, haunts the family; Deborah later uncovers evidence that Elsie suffered horrific conditions there. Day's near-total silence on Elsie afterward deepens the family's unresolved trauma.
  • Opening his home to Skloot: When Skloot first contacts the family, Day is among her earliest points of access. His cautious hospitality—letting her sit in his home, offering halting memories of Henrietta—provides the book with its human foundation, even as his emotional reticence sends her searching elsewhere for depth.

The cast04–05

04·Relationships

What are David 'Day' Lacks's most important relationships?

Day's relationship with Henrietta is the book's emotional bedrock. They were childhood cousins who grew up together before marrying—a closeness that carries both tenderness and complication. Skloot notes Day's infidelities, yet his devastation at Henrietta's death was real and lasting; he never remarried. This contradiction—deep love alongside betrayal—resists easy sentimentality.

With Deborah, Day's silence becomes an active harm. Deborah's hunger to know her mother and understand HeLa is repeatedly frustrated by a father who will not or cannot speak. His reticence is not cruelty; it is grief wearing the mask of stoicism. Still, it leaves Deborah to construct her mother alone, and that loneliness defines much of the book's emotional core.

His relationship with Joe/Zakariyya maps the wreckage of a household left motherless and poor. Joe's volatility is partly legible as the product of a chaotic upbringing Day could not adequately stabilize. And Day's early wariness toward Skloot mirrors Lawrence's distrust—both men protecting a family already taken from once.

05·Connected characters

How is David 'Day' Lacks connected to the other characters?

Henrietta Lacks

Day and Henrietta were childhood cousins who grew up together in Clover, Virginia, and later married.

Full commentary

Day and Henrietta were childhood cousins who grew up together in Clover, Virginia, and later married. Their bond was deep but complicated—Day was known to be unfaithful, yet he was devastated by Henrietta's death and never remarried. He is both her primary caregiver during her illness and, by signing consent forms, an unwitting participant in the removal of her cells without informed consent.

Deborah Lacks

Deborah is Day's daughter and the child most consumed by questions about her mother and sister Elsie. Day's emotional reticence frustrates Deborah's search for answers; he rarely discusses Henrietta or the HeLa cells, leaving Deborah to seek truth elsewhere. His silence is a wound she carries throughout the book.

Elsie Lacks

Elsie, Henrietta and Day's disabled daughter, was institutionalized at Crownsville State Hospital while Henrietta was still alive. Day's decision—likely made under pressure and limited options—to commit Elsie haunts the family, and Deborah later discovers Elsie suffered terribly there. Day rarely speaks of Elsie, adding to the family's unresolved grief.

Joe (Zakariyya) Lacks

Joe (later Zakariyya) is Day's youngest son, born shortly before Henrietta's death. Joe grew up volatile and deeply angry, in part due to a chaotic upbringing after Henrietta died. His turbulent relationship with Day reflects the family's broader dysfunction in the wake of loss and poverty.

Lawrence Lacks

Lawrence is Day's eldest son, who helped hold the family together after Henrietta's death. He shares his father's guarded nature and distrust of outsiders, and both men are initially wary of Rebecca Skloot's investigation.

Sonny Lacks

Sonny is another of Day's sons who, like his siblings, grew up in poverty after Henrietta's death. Sonny's struggles with medical costs—ironic given that his mother's cells generated billions in revenue—underscore the injustice Day's entire family endures.

Rebecca Skloot

Day is one of the first family members Skloot contacts, and he grants her access to his home and memories. His halting cooperation provides her with foundational details about Henrietta's life, though his emotional guardedness means she must piece together much of the story from other sources.

Alfred Lacks

Alfred is Day's brother, and the Lacks brothers' shared roots in Clover, Virginia, connect the family's history to the tobacco-farming world that shaped Day's character and worldview.

Study06–07

06·Questions

Questions readers ask about David 'Day' Lacks

How did Day Lacks end up at Johns Hopkins with Henrietta?

Day took Henrietta to Johns Hopkins because it was the only local hospital that treated Black patients. Working from within a world shaped by racial segregation and deep institutional suspicion, he trusted Hopkins to fulfill its responsibilities as a hospital—a trust Skloot portrays as both understandable and tragically misplaced, considering what followed with Henrietta's cells.

Why did Day Lacks sign the consent forms without understanding what they meant?

Day signed the consent forms because the medical staff at Johns Hopkins never clearly explained their significance to him. Skloot uses this moment to highlight a medical culture that systematically excluded Black, working-class patients and their families from genuine informed consent, treating their understanding as irrelevant.

What was Day Lacks's relationship with Henrietta really like?

Day and Henrietta were childhood cousins from Clover, Virginia, who grew up together before marrying, resulting in a notably deep bond. The relationship was complicated by Day's known infidelities; however, his devastation after Henrietta's death in 1951 was real and lasting—he never remarried. Skloot presents this contradiction as resistant to easy sentimentality.

How did Day Lacks's silence affect his daughter Deborah?

Day's emotional reticence regarding Henrietta and the HeLa cells caused lasting pain for Deborah, who desperately wanted to understand her mother and her sister Elsie. Unable to seek answers from her father, Deborah was compelled to construct her mother's story largely alone, and that loneliness drives much of the book's emotional core.

What happened to Elsie Lacks, and what was Day's role in that decision?

Elsie, Day and Henrietta's disabled daughter, was institutionalized at Crownsville State Hospital while Henrietta was still alive. Day agreed to the commitment due to conditions of poverty and extremely limited alternatives. Deborah later uncovered that Elsie endured horrific conditions there, and Day's near-total silence on the matter afterward deepened the family's unresolved grief.

Does Day Lacks ever open up about Henrietta or the HeLa cells?

Day provides Rebecca Skloot with some of her earliest and most foundational access, allowing her into his home and sharing fragmented memories of Henrietta. His emotional guardedness is significant throughout; Skloot describes his later willingness to speak less as resolution and more as a tired generosity from an old man for whom maintaining silence had become too great an effort.

Is Day Lacks presented as a villain or a victim in the book?

Day is presented neither as a villain nor simply a victim, but as a man whose choices—signing consent forms, institutionalizing Elsie—were constrained by poverty, racism, and a lack of education. Skloot utilizes his story to indict the systems that exploited the Lacks family while portraying Day himself with a quiet dignity shaped by lifelong institutional neglect.

How did Day Lacks raise his children after Henrietta died?

After Henrietta's death in 1951, Day raised their five children largely alone in poverty, relying on relatives and neighbors for support. The household was unstable enough that one son, Joe (later Zakariyya), grew up volatile and deeply angry—an outcome, Skloot suggests, of a chaotic upbringing that Day, grieving and under-resourced, could not adequately stabilize.

07·Essay angles

Use this in your essay

Tool · Essay angles

  • Informed consent as a class and race issue: Argue that Day's signing of consent forms without comprehension reflects not individual failure but a medical institution that structurally excluded Black, working-class patients from meaningful participation in their own care.

  • Silence as a survival strategy: Examine how Day's emotional reticence—about Henrietta, Elsie, and HeLa—functions as a response to trauma and institutional powerlessness rather than indifference.

  • The ethics of proxy decision-making: Use Day's consent and his decision to institutionalize Elsie to explore how poverty and racism narrow the choices available to caregivers, complicating straightforward moral judgment.

  • Day as representative of the Lacks family's broader experience: Argue that Day embodies the book's central injustice—exploitation without understanding, loss without closure—and that his story is inseparable from the systemic critique Skloot constructs.

  • Masculinity and grief in mid-century Black Southern culture: Analyze how the emotional codes Day inherited from Clover, Virginia shape his inability to speak about loss, and how that silence reverberates across generations of the Lacks family.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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