Black Women

Black women experience a unique intersection of patriarchal and white supremacist oppression, leading to statistics like disproportionate maternal mortality in the U.S. and foundational feminist theory like the writing of Audre Lorde. Black women are not a monolith, however, and include women from all around the world who are a part of the African diaspora. They have often led social movements for a wide variety of causes because of the intersectional oppressive structures on their lives.

‘We Take Care of Each Other’: Building Community in a Brutal Political Moment

PUBLISHED 12/1/2025 by

The Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) has never had it easy. Founded in 2004 by Alexander L. Lee, TGIJP’s mission was simple enough on paper: Provide legal services to incarcerated transgender, gender-variant and intersex Californians. 

How are formerly incarcerated Black and brown transgender, gender-variant and intersex people managing to do this work in the nightmare that is 2025? 

The answer is simple: We take care of ourselves, and we take care of each other, just like we always have. 

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

Twenty Thousand Stillbirths a Year, and No Federal Plan to Prevent Them

PUBLISHED 11/28/2025 by and

The U.S. loses over 20,000 babies to stillbirth each year, with many preventable. Across the country, pregnant women say their concerns are dismissed, with devastating consequences for maternal and fetal health. Yet stillbirth remains largely invisible in policy and public discourse, and families are left to deal with these tragic and costly losses with little support.

A new documentary from ProPublica, Before a Breath—based on the outlet’s Pulitzer Prize finalist reporting—follows three mothers who turn their grief from stillbirth into advocacy for safer pregnancies and better outcomes for expecting parents.

A Bill Criminalizing Abortion Failed in the South Carolina Senate, But S.C. Prosecutors Have Long Treated Pregnancy as a Crime

PUBLISHED 11/24/2025 by

We have to talk about South Carolina.

Last week, what could have become the most punitive abortion law in the U.S., SB 323, failed in the South Carolina Senate. The bill proposed banning abortion in almost all circumstances, criminalizing people who sought abortion care, and removed any exceptions for rape, incest or fetal anomaly currently written into the state’s already strict six-week ban.

The defeat of SB 323 is a victory that was won by dedicated and fierce advocates from across the state and across the country. But South Carolina has been actively engaged in policing the bodies of pregnant women, and in criminalizing pregnancy, for decades.

The prosecutorial “hold my beer” approach to criminalizing abortion shows us not only just broken the criminal legal system is, but also, just how little regard they have for the humanity of people with the capacity for pregnancy. 

‘I’m Working Just to Survive’: A Single Mom on SNAP Cuts, Two Jobs and Big Dreams

PUBLISHED 11/13/2025 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.

Nicole is a single mother working two jobs. She was a part of the first round of Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), where she received one year of guaranteed income. MMT has helped more than 500 mothers since it began in 2018.

“My ideal future is one where we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck—where I can pay all our bills, provide stability, and even take a trip on the weekends for fun, just to enjoy life together. I want more for Kylie and me.”

A Hunger for Justice: Why SNAP Cuts Are a Feminist Public Health Issue

PUBLISHED 11/7/2025 by

When policy proposals like The One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Trump administration’s recent attempt to partially suspend food-stamp payments threaten the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), we must acknowledge that these decisions are not about fiscal responsibility. They are an ideological manifestation of historical racism and sexism that inevitably punishes Black and brown families and undermines the stability of our entire society.

In fact, SNAP recipients are 45 percent less likely to experience food insecurity, demonstrating that SNAP is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs we have in the U.S.

Through Art and Storytelling, Artist Harmonia Rosales’ First Book Brings African-Centered Myths to Life

PUBLISHED 11/3/2025 by

When Harmonia Rosales first unveiled The Creation of God in 2017—a reimagining of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam with a Black woman as the divine—she didn’t just challenge art history; she remade it in her image. With her brush, Rosales flipped the script on Western depictions of power, beauty and divinity, centering Black womanhood and African spiritual traditions long erased from the canon.

Her new book, Chronicles of Ori, continues that reclamation through story. A lushly illustrated volume rooted in Yoruba mythology, the work brings to life the Orishas, divine figures of West African cosmology, and weaves them together with familiar names like Eve—both biblical and mitochondrial—into a mythology that claims space for the African diaspora beyond enslavement.

“I felt that we needed a mythology,” Rosales told Ms. “We needed something to connect to besides enslavement, because that’s what seems to be in the Western canon.”

With Chronicles of Ori, she offers that connection: a world where African gods are unmasked, women embody creation itself, and the sacred is painted in brown skin. Through her art and her words, Rosales restores what history fragmented—melding spirituality, storytelling and imagination into what she calls a new kind of mythology, one that reclaims both memory and power.

Two New Laws Could Transform Black Maternal Health in California, If We Get Implementation Right

PUBLISHED 10/30/2025 by and

In California—a state where Black women account for 21 percent of pregnancy-related deaths and just 5 percent of births—systemic racism continues to shape maternal outcomes. Despite past reforms, accountability has fallen short.

That is why the recent signing of AB 260, the Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Act, and AB 55, the Freedom to Birth Act, represents a watershed moment.

How We Can Turn Away From Medicalized Birth Culture and Reset the U.S. Birth Care System

PUBLISHED 10/24/2025 by

The U.S. has been doing birth backwards for decades, providing highly medicalized, costly care despite poor outcomes, and ignoring data that estimates at least 60 percent of U.S. pregnancies are low-risk and could be safely supported by midwives in a community setting.

Alice Walker writes, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” It is this self-defeating pattern in the face of authoritarianism that the current U.S. federal government is counting on. And sadly, a pattern to which some of our most powerful institutions have succumbed. Fear and chaos are tried and true tools of oppression. Vision and courage, however, are exponentially stronger.

America’s birth care system can be reset, but not by fearfully resisting its collapse or playing in its rubble.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)