ABSTRACT
As Black women, birthing people and families seek to reclaim not only the right to survive childbirth but thrive and raise their children with love and joy. The erasure of the Black midwife was destructive to our reproductive health and rights by placing Black women and pregnant people into the hands of a medical complex rooted in white supremacy. The elimination of the Black midwife created dependence on obstetrics and gynecology and the medical safety net rather than the intrinsic ancient knowledge of reproductive health that came with our ancestors across the Middle Passage, learned and passed down for millennia from generation to generation. A century ago, half the births of all women in the United States and 90% of Black women in the Jim Crow southern states were attended by midwives.
