Roland Anthony Pattillo was born on June 12, 1933, in DeQuincy, La. His mom, Rhena (Shaw) Pattillo, was a homemaker; his father, James, was a railroad blacksmith.
Roland earned a Bachelor of Arts diploma from Xavier College of Louisiana, a traditionally Black Roman Catholic establishment in New Orleans, and his medical diploma from Saint Louis College, in 1959. He accomplished a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Johns Hopkins beneath Dr. Gey in 1967 and did his residency at Marquette College Medical Faculty, now the Medical Faculty of Wisconsin. He stayed on there for the subsequent three a long time as a lecturer, researcher and practitioner till becoming a member of Morehouse within the early Nineties. He retired in 2013.
Along with his spouse, Dr. Pattillo is survived by his kids, Catherine, Mary and Patrick Pattillo and Sheri Pattillo Johnson; his stepson, Todd Thomas, who is known as Speech; a sister, Carolyn Pattillo Davis; and eight grandchildren. An earlier marriage, to Marva Parks, led to divorce.
When Henrietta Lacks died, she was buried within the Lacks household gravesite in Clover. However she had no headstone or marker. In 2010, Dr. Pattillo and Ms. O’Flynn Pattillo raised the funds to purchase her one, a pink granite slab carved within the form of a guide. The inscription reads, partially: “Right here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal cells will proceed to assist mankind perpetually.”
“He put our household on the map,” mentioned Shirley Lacks, certainly one of Mrs. Lacks’s daughters-in-law. “If Dr. Pattillo hadn’t talked to Deborah, and Deborah hadn’t talked to Rebecca, the household wouldn’t have often called a lot about Henrietta’s life and her contributions to mankind. I thank Dr. Pattillo for simply being there, particularly for Deborah. He had a really calming spirit, however he was agency in his perception.”