For Daniel Atkinson, motherhood did not change her. It gave air to a movement.
During the Black Material Health Week, a national campaign to raise awareness and improve the results for Black Mother’s, is spotting the Detroit-based organization Mothering Justice what happens when advocated.
“We are not only calling for change, we are making it,” Etkinson said, the executive director of the mothering Justice. “Black women are more likely to die during delivery, have low-paying jobs, and are often primary careful. That reality demanded action.”
Etkinson, a mother of six, established Mothering Justice after struggling to take care of cheap baby and paid a holiday during her first pregnancy. It was initiated as a small attempt to join with other mothers that quickly developed into the growing movement of organizers and a strong sense of the community.
“The entire goal of the event is to put yourself out of the job,” he said. “This means a world where inequality is not present.”
Mothering Justice also plays an important role in furthering legislative changes. The group is part of Michigan’s alliance of “Mi Momanbus” bills, which is a package of laws focused on closing racial inequalities in maternal health care.
For Tamika Jackson, a breeding justice organizer with the group, the work is deeply individual.
Jackson shared his painful birth experience with MPs in Lanceing as part of his fight for traumatic birthting experiences for black women-according to the CDC, there is a possibility of about 3.5 times more than the complications of delivery than white women.
Speaking to MPs in Lanceing, Jackson said, “On May 14, 2022, which was considered a regular epidural, my anesthesiologist made a mistake.” “I died during labor. I coded. I was placed on life support and had an emergency C-section. I survived, but just barely.”
Since the launch in 2012, Mothering Justice has expanded its influence beyond Michigan, formed an alliance, emphasized policy change and raised the voices of black mothers across the country.
“We built power with black women and black people,” Jackson said. “And we took that power not only in our state capital but to our country’s capital.”
For more information, go to the website of Mothering Justice.
Lauren Winfrey
