Birthing in the Fire
On Racism and Reproductive Health in America
This workshop is an invitation to examine reproductive health through a structural lens — one that accounts for history, policy, and the cumulative conditions that shape maternal outcomes in the United States.
What you’re about to engage is not a comprehensive overview of everything that could be said on this topic. It is a focused entry point — designed to build clarity around how hierarchy, inequity, and lived experience intersect in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care. This material is layered. You may want to move through it more than once.
Access to this video page and all associated content is for individual use only. For group viewing, organizational licensing, or facilitated sessions, please contact our team.
A portion of proceeds from this workshop supports the work of The Educated Birth Foundation, expanding access to reproductive health education and resources for communities and organizations.
Download WorkbookContact Our TeamIntroduction
This is not a comprehensive account of Black history across the diaspora, nor is it an attempt to capture the full range of Black experiences — past or present. Black communities are not monolithic. Our histories, cultures, identities, and lived realities are expansive and varied.
What this workshop offers is a focused examination of the specific historical and structural context of the United States — particularly as it relates to reproductive health and the disparities we see today for Black women and pregnant people. We are narrowing the lens here to create clarity around the systems, patterns, and conditions that shape health outcomes in this context.
Part 1: Dehumanization as Foundation | 3:26
This work begins with a clear understanding: the disparities we see today are not accidental. They are rooted in a system that first required the dehumanization of Black people in order to justify exploitation, control, and violence.
Part 2: Evolution of Power + Adaptation of Control | 7:53
This section traces how power adapts — through policy, culture, and institutional practice — allowing inequality to persist without always appearing explicit. Understanding this evolution helps us recognize that harm is not static; it is responsive and enduring.
Part 3: The House as It Was Built | 18:44
The systems we navigate today were constructed within a specific social, political, and economic context — one that ranked human value and distributed resources accordingly. This section examines the architecture itself: how caste, white supremacy, and structural design shape access, credibility, and protection. It shifts the focus from individual behavior to the foundation beneath our institutions.
Part 4: Stolen Knowledge, Broken Trust | 24:15
The history of reproductive healthcare in the United States includes both the extraction of knowledge from Black communities and the violation of Black bodies within medical systems. This history has shaped both clinical practice and collective memory.
Part 5: Living Responses | 35:35
This section explores how leaders in reproductive health research, support, and care are responding to current conditions — through documentation, research, critical feedback on solutions, and the practice of individualized, responsive care.
Part 6: So Where Do We Go From Here? | 49:38
Understanding the problem is only one part of the work. This section turns toward action — asking what responsibility looks like in practice. It invites a shift from awareness to engagement, encouraging participants to consider how their roles, decisions, and environments can contribute to meaningful change within systems that were not designed to be equitable.
Part 7: Repair, Responsibility, and the Baobab Tree | 52:12
Repair is not a single act. It is a sustained commitment to accountability, redistribution, and care. It requires both individual reflection and structural intervention. The Baobab tree — often called the “tree of life” — offers a framework for thinking about this work: deeply rooted, expansive, and sustained over time. This final section centers responsibility as ongoing, communal practice.
Additional Resources
Recommended Reading
This is a starting point — a way to continue deepening your understanding beyond this workshop. Each of these texts offers a different lens, and together they help build a more complete picture of the systems and histories that shape reproductive health today.
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Harriet A. Washington
Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth
Dána-Ain Davis
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
Uché Blackstock, MD
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Dorothy Roberts
The Women Who Caught the Babies: A Story of African American Midwives
Eloise Greenfield
Birthing Liberation: How Reproductive Justice Can Set Us Free
Sabia Wade
Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes, and Healing
Shafia Monroe
Reproductive Justice: An Introduction
Loretta J. Ross & Rickie Solinger
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Isabel Wilkerson
Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class
Allison Davis, Burleigh Gardner, & Mary R. Gardner
Reproductive Health + Equity Resource Guide: Black U.S. Experience
A curated collection of articles, research, and educational resources exploring the history and present-day realities of reproductive health inequities affecting Black families in the United States. Intended to support deeper learning, reflection, and more equitable care practices.
Download HereThe History of Black Midwifery: A Comprehensive Timeline
A comprehensive timeline tracing the legacy, contributions, and resilience of Black midwives across generations. This resource highlights key historical moments that have shaped reproductive health care in the United States.
Download Here
© 2026 Cheyenne Varner and The Educated Birth, LLC. All rights reserved.
This workshop, including but not limited to its script, presentation slides, visual materials, instructional structure, conceptual frameworks, workbook content, language, sequencing, and educational design (collectively, the “Materials”), constitutes proprietary intellectual property owned exclusively by Cheyenne Varner and The Educated Birth, LLC.
Purchase or access to these Materials grants a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use or for use strictly within the scope of the license purchased. No ownership rights are transferred. Unauthorized reproduction, distribution, modification, adaptation, recording, public display, posting, resale, sublicensing, facilitation, or derivative use of the Materials, in whole or in part, without prior written consent is strictly prohibited and may constitute copyright infringement under applicable federal and state law.
Organizational licenses are restricted to the number of viewers or participants specified at the time of purchase. Sharing access credentials, forwarding recordings, duplicating materials, or using this workshop for training beyond the licensed scope is not permitted.
This workshop references and cites the work of independent scholars, researchers, and practitioners, including but not limited to Arline Geronimus, Donna Ayim Davis, Karen A. Scott, Miriam Zoila Pérez, Jennie Joseph, and others. All referenced concepts, quotations, and research findings remain the intellectual property of their respective authors. Inclusion within this workshop does not imply ownership of those original works by Cheyenne Varner or The Educated Birth, LLC.
Nothing in this presentation constitutes medical, legal, or financial advice. The Materials are provided for educational purposes only.For licensing inquiries, institutional permissions, facilitation contracts, or authorized reproduction requests, please contact The Educated Birth, LLC directly.
last updated on april 14, 2026
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