Voices

‘After-School Care Was Helping Me Work’: A Mississippi Mom on Raising Children, Running a Business and Navigating Cuts to Support

PUBLISHED 10/8/2026 by

Front and Center is a groundbreaking series of op-eds created in partnership with the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which aims to put front and center the voices of Black women most affected by the often-abstract policies currently debated at the national level. The series highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ trust, which since 2019 has given $1,000 per month for 12 months to about 100 families per year, all headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.

What possibilities could open up for low-income families if financial survival weren’t always top of mind? What dreams would these mothers and families be able to pursue? What activism and community leadership might arise? The series will answer these and other questions, by placing one mother’s story front and center.

Karlonda is a cosmetologist, mother of two daughters with a son on the way, and the recipient of one year of guaranteed income from the Magnolia Mother’s Trust. She runs her own business from home and has also worked in dental assisting and childcare.

“I have a dental assistant certification and a personal assistant certification. I have also worked in childcare. … I was never offered paid time off or benefits in those jobs. … When I had my daughters, I did not get paid parental leave. I had to save money while I was pregnant because I knew I was not going to get any paid leave. I took six weeks off, but I was penny-pinching because I still had to provide and pay bills.

“Six weeks is not a long time. I feel like I missed out on bonding with my babies because I had to go back to work so quickly.

“Every job should offer maternity leave. Most jobs do not really care about people who are pregnant or what they may be going through. …

“My SNAP was recently cut by about $400. At that time, it felt like everything was getting cut: vouchers, SNAP and other help. Sometimes you do not know what is going on unless you go up there and ask for yourself. Normally, you might get a letter in the mail, but I did not get an explanation.”

‘Everybody Needs Somebody’: A Single Mother on Guaranteed Income, Community and Making It Work

PUBLISHED 8/27/2026 by

Front & Center, a series from Ms. magazine and Springboard to Opportunities, puts the voices of Black women most affected by today’s policy debates at the center of the conversation. The series highlights the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which provides Black mothers living in federally subsidized housing with $1,000 per month for one year.

Candace, a 33-year-old mother of three from Jackson, Miss., received one year of guaranteed income through the trust. She is working toward her life insurance license and dreams of starting a business helping people with cancer find high-quality wigs—all while building a more secure future for her children.

“Motherhood is hardest when you’re doing it by yourself, period,” Candace writes. “I want people to understand that the only way this works is if we help each other. There is no way around it. Everybody needs a community. Everybody needs somebody.

“Everything I do is based around my kids. Don’t invite me if my kids can’t come.

“The help that is supposed to be available for working mothers through government programs can be iffy. Unless you are completely unemployed, it can feel like you do not receive anything. But we are still struggling. We still live paycheck to paycheck, and people expect us to provide food out of that too. It is not realistic.”

The People’s Bill of Rights 250 Invites Americans to Reimagine the Constitution

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by , and

A new online public platform—The People’s Bill of Rights 250—invites Americans to propose, discuss and vote on ideas they believe belong in the Constitution. As the U.S. marks 250 years, the bold, interactive project asks Americans not only to reflect on the nation’s founding, but to help shape its future.

The nonpartisan organization The People and executive director Katie Fahey, alongside a coalition of civic, advocacy and cultural leaders, spearheaded the People’s Bill of Rights 250. It invites Americans to answer a simple question: What freedoms, rights and protections should every person in the country be guaranteed over the next 250 years?  

From now until Friday, July 31, Americans are encouraged to vote and share their own ideas at the People’s Bill of Rights 250’s website.

Poems Wherein the Bullet Speaks: A Review of Heidi Kasa’s ‘The Bullet Takes Forever’

PUBLISHED 7/11/2026 by

Consider the title of Heidi Kasa’s first book of poetry, published by Mouthfeel Press: The Bullet Takes Forever. In seven syllables, Kasa’s title conjures a wide swath of loss, both vertical and horizontal, the catastrophic consequences of gun violence, robbing us of time and life itself.

The way the title lands is a fine indicator of the way Kasa’s poems will strike the courageous reader, the reader willing to dwell for a time in this space dedicated to examining violence, often delivered upon the most vulnerable among us.

Reading these poems, I realized how little narrative Kasa actually needs to provide. We already know the story. We have lived it, watched it unfold again and again in schools and communities across this country. At a moment when the Trump administration is rolling back gun regulations, Kasa’s poems remind me that policy debates can never capture what violence leaves behind: grief, fear and lives forever altered. Her collection asks us not simply to read, but to remember.

“Back to School Shopping List

“1. backpack (big enough to hide behind)
“2. notebook (for reunification records)”
“7. spelling test (words: tourniquet, instructions, wound, direct, manual, pressure).”

Women’s Sports Were Built by Letting Girls In

PUBLISHED 7/9/2026 by

When the Supreme Court upheld West Virginia’s ban on transgender girls participating in girls’ school sports in West Virginia v. B.P.J., it said the ruling was about protecting the safety and fairness of women’s and girls’ sports. I hear that claim against everything I actually lived.

Thirty years ago, in United States v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that generalizations about “the way women are” cannot justify denying opportunity to women whose talent and capacity place them outside the average description. That principle didn’t just build my generation of athletes. It built a generation of women: the litigators and judges, the surgeons, the CEOs and entrepreneurs, the senators and governors, the police officers and firefighters and fighter pilots, the women who were the first of everything. Every one of those doors was held shut by the same argument Virginia made: Most women wouldn’t want this, most women couldn’t do it.

Women of my generation didn’t fight to be seen as individuals—as athletes, as leaders, as whatever they had it in them to be—only to watch that principle eroded now, in their name and over their objection.

More than half a century ago, this country decided that girls who had been told they didn’t belong on the field belonged there after all. I got to live the proof of that promise. The work now is to keep that promise for every kid who wants to play.

‘Protesters Spit on Us’: Why This Wisconsin Abortion Clinic Escort Won’t Back Down

PUBLISHED 6/21/2026 by

Molly (last name withheld for privacy), a 35-year-old clinic escort, says they will not be deterred from helping patients get the care they need at a Milwaukee clinic that provides abortions.

Molly outlines the current landscape of threats facing providers, the history that informs this moment, and what is at stake when violence against reproductive healthcare workers is minimized or ignored.

“Being an abortion escort appealed to me because I would be able to interact with people who were coming to the clinic to receive an abortion and give them support. …

“Abortion clinic escorts are doing de-escalation with radicalized people, and we have no weapons. We are a unique group of people with strong de-escalation training. … When I train new escorts, I tell them the names of some of our regular protesters: ‘This is Joe. This is Sam.’ I think names hold a lot of power, and if you know someone’s name, it takes away some of the fear. …

“I tell new escorts to approach a car slowly. Sometimes people arrive early and want to sit and take a breath. Sometimes they have children with them and are getting situated. … Then as they walk into the clinic, stand between them and the people shouting on the sidewalk to act as a physical sound barrier.

“What’s kept me coming back to this work is the other clinic escorts, who are all passionate about reproductive rights. You make incredible friends and build strong bonds when you spend so much time together. I advise other escorts, especially new people, to practice self-care after a shift. It’s not normal to be yelled at for hours. We get called ‘harlots,’ ‘jezebels’ and ‘sinners,’ so I encourage decompression time. Everybody has their own post-clinic ritual for self-centering. … I usually come home and do some baking. …

“I think the protesters believe we escorts have very sad lives. But I get to go home to a happy, loving place and a freshly cooked meal with my husband and two dogs.”

I’ve Spent My Life Caring for Others. Who Cares for Caregivers?

PUBLISHED 6/18/2026 by

Front & Center amplifies the voices of Black women navigating poverty—highlighting their struggles, resilience and dreams as they care for their families, build careers and challenge systems not built for their success. Now in its fourth year, Front & Center is a collaboration between Ms. and Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit based in Jackson, Miss., working alongside residents of federally subsidized housing as they pursue their goals.
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“I have always been a caregiver. That’s just who I am.

“I care for my grandkids now—three of them, ages 6, 3 and 7 months—and I’ve cared for a lot of family members over the years. My daughter works at the post office, so I watch the children when she’s at work, when they get out of school and sometimes at night if she needs me. They keep me on my toes, but I love every minute of it.

“Before that, I cared for my grandmother, who raised me. And that was tough, because this was when I had just had my own kids. They were going to a sitter so that I could go and care for her. She had cancer and I had to learn how to help her with everything, including her colostomy bag.

“People act like it’s simple, but it’s not. It costs money. It takes time. And when the people who need care also have to work, that puts families in a tight spot. My daughter looked into daycare, and it was expensive. So she asked me to help, and then she paid me. That worked better for all of us.

“Getting guaranteed income helped me too. It gave me some breathing room. I was able to help with gas, help around the house and take care of little things that come up. That kind of support matters because caregiving does not stop just because the bills keep coming.

“I still believe in taking care of people. Babies can’t help themselves. Kids can’t help themselves. Older adults can’t either. We all get to a point where we need somebody. So I keep doing what I do, because this is my purpose. I care for my people, and I do it with love.”

‘Nope, You’re Fine’: This Black Doctor Nearly Died After Giving Birth in Reno

PUBLISHED 6/16/2026 by

A first-person account from Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, a Black family physician and the medical director for Saint Mary’s Urgent Care Group in Reno, Nevada. Curry-Winchell nearly died after giving birth by C-section at her own hospital after repeated warnings that something was seriously wrong were dismissed. Her story—shared with writer Bonnie Fuller—underscores the stark realities of America’s maternal mortality crisis, which disproportionately endangers Black women regardless of education or income.

“I was 38 and had just delivered my second baby, a little girl, at the Reno hospital where I was a medical director at the time. …

“I remember holding my new daughter in the recovery room, then being wheeled into my hospital room. That’s when I started feeling like something wasn’t right. I didn’t feel like myself. I was having a hard time talking, and I was in a lot of pain. …

“I wasn’t capable of using my medical training in that moment. But I had to do something. I handed my phone to my husband, James, and told him to call my OB-GYN right away. … Dr. Jack believed him and came right back to the hospital. …

“It turned out that I still had retained products, including placenta and fetal tissue, in my uterus. Unfortunately, this can happen sometimes, especially after a prior C-section. I also was bleeding internally. I had lost so much blood, I had to have a transfusion. …

“American Black women have a very high maternal mortality rate, and I lived it myself. If my doctor had not believed my husband and me and returned to care for me, I would have been like other Black women you hear about passing away after giving birth.”

May 21 Virtual Event: Tackling Patriarchy and Power (With Anna Malaika Tubbs, Aisha Becker-Burrowes and Danielle Robay)

PUBLISHED 5/20/2026 by

The Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. have partnered with Women’s Foundation California to invite you to a national virtual conversation with Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs that turns our attention toward the system that has kept us from achieving true democracy for the last 250 years: patriarchy. 

Drawing from her latest book (and New York Times best-seller) Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us, Tubbs traces the ruthless logic that has organized American life for 250 years—always bound to race, always rooted in a binary that decides who counts and who does not.

The event is Thursday, May 21, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 CT / 8:30 ET. RSVP today!

Tubbs will be joined in conversation by Aisha Becker-Burrowes, co-founder and co-executive director of FEMINIST—a nonprofit media company serving a global community of over 6 million—and interviewed by TV host, journalist and content creator, Danielle Robay.

‘They’re Taking Our Humanity Away’: Kimberlé Crenshaw on Her Memoir, America’s Future and Why the Fight for Justice Requires ‘Backtalking’

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by

For decades, pioneering legal scholar and activist Kimberlé Crenshaw has shaped the language we use to understand systemic injustice—from coining the term “intersectionality” to helping launch the #SayHerName movement.

In her new memoir, Backtalker: An American Memoir, Crenshaw traces the personal and political experiences that shaped her work, while warning that the attacks on critical race theory, feminism and Black women are inseparable from the broader erosion of democracy itself.

In this wide-ranging interview, Crenshaw reflects on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, “intersectional failure,” the backlash against Black women leaders and the dangers of what historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory compliance.” She argues that today’s political moment—from attacks on independent journalism to the dismantling of civil rights protections—demands a more expansive understanding of solidarity and resistance.

“The other side doesn’t want us to feel empathy,” Crenshaw says. “They’re taking our humanity away, the thing that makes us humans and not a machine.”

Crenshaw also speaks candidly about the personal costs of “backtalking” to power, the unfinished grief that continues to shape her activism, and why she still believes collective action and moral clarity matter.

“One step forward can lead to five or 10 steps back,” she says. “When we see the forces of retrenchment coming on the horizon, we must pick up every weapon we have to fight against it.”