the black midwives series

The legacy of Black midwifery in the US goes back many generations. Half of all births attended in the early 1900s were attended by these grand midwives. Through smearing and policy change, midwifery was largely dismantled by the American Medical Association. When it experienced a revival in the 1970s, midwives were almost exclusively white women, as it remains today (as of 2014, less than 2% of the nation's reported 15,000 midwives are Black). Learn about just a few of the many incredible care providers from our past in this series.