Black History

Saving Black Mothers Starts Outside the Hospital

SEATTLE MEDIUM — A recent panel discussion explored the disproportionately high rates of pregnancy-related deaths among Black American women, even as maternal mortality declines in other developed nations. Experts at the Word In Black event concluded that this disparity stems not from biology, but from systemic issues of access, opportunity, and unequal care.

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2 months ago

July 22, 2026

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Saving Black Mothers Starts Outside the Hospital

For much of the developed world, childbirth has become safer with each passing generation. Medical advances, better prenatal care, and stronger public health systems have dramatically reduced the chances that bringing a child into the world would cost a woman her life.

Unless she’s Black American.

That stubborn contradiction framed a Word In Black panel discussion last week, where physicians, researchers, and community health leaders explored why members of the African diaspora still die from pregnancy-related complications at disproportionately high rates—even as maternal mortality falls in developed nations.

Their conclusion was unequivocal: the disparity is not about biology but about lack of access and opportunity–along with unequal systems. The issues that jeopardize Black women’s maternal health happen long before she goes into labor.

Moderated by Jennifer Porter Gore, Word In Black’s health correspondent, the livestreamed conversation brought together three panelists whose focus is confronting the maternal health crisis using community-based solutions.

‘I Knew It Wasn’t Biological’

Tamara Mason, director of Maternal and Child Health Collective Impact at the March of Dimes in Atlanta, discussed the policy and public health barriers that continue to drive disparities. Kay Matthews, founder and executive director of the Shades of Blue Project, spoke about the lived experiences of Black mothers’ mental health needs while navigating pregnancy, loss, and the postpartum period.

And Dr. Kaytura Felix, host of the Deep Care podcast and a distinguished scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained why improving outcomes requires expanding the definition of maternal care to include entire communities in which Black families live.

When she decided to investigate the Black maternal health crisis, “I knew it was not genetics. I knew it wasn’t biological,” said Felix. She began researching the crisis after noticing that Black women in her native Dominica, a small island in the Caribbean, weren’t dying in childbirth as often as in the U.S.

That’s despite both groups sharing the “same genetic pool,” Felix said, noting that the ancestors of Black Dominicans also have endured the transatlantic slave trade.

The difference between the U.S. and Dominica was the system, Felix said.

“I knew that there had to be racism in the [American] medical establishment,” she said. “And so, the question I asked myself is, ‘What is the Black community doing about the black maternal health crisis?’”

Midwives a ‘Game-Changer’

Felix’s research uncovered the extensive role of midwives and led to the launch of the Black Birthing Future Study, through which she learned more about a model of care that differed greatly from one she’d seen as a medical doctor. The study is built on interviews with community midwives, doulas, mental health therapists, and their clients.

The solutions are already in the community. Collectively putting aside our egos, how can we do this bigger but address what’s happening in our community now? Because we can’t wait.
Tamara Mason, March of Dimes, Atlanta

Midwives, she said, treat childbirth as “a community and family event,” in which the pregnant woman is “the sun” and all care and support decisions revolve around her needs.

“Client after client after client told us, ‘My midwife loves me,’” Felix said. “And that is not just a ‘nice-to-have.’ That’s a game changer” that can drive better outcomes for Black women in the U.S.

‘Mental Health is Maternal Health’

Black midwives “are working really hard to make sure that the family is supported,” she said. They also connect their clients to doulas, lactation specialists, and neighbors who show up with diapers and food.

Matthews founded the Shades of Blue Project in Houston — and later, Black Maternal Mental Health Week — after her daughter was stillborn. Amid a devastating tragedy, she said, she experienced racism in the healthcare system first-hand.

“My mental health [struggle] is what had me out here saving myself,” she said. “That is no way to live.”

Yet the trauma she experienced, Matthews said, went unnamed for years: “There was no correlation being made to infant loss and postpartum depression, which I was clearly going through… I did have to save myself with no guidance.”

Today, she says, her organization argues that mental health is as important as prenatal care and care during childbirth: “Mental health is a part of maternal health.”

Pregnancy and Finances

While it may seem obvious that a pregnant person’s economic condition is important, panelists said there’s not enough understanding about how drastically financial stability can affect physical and emotional health.

Mason of the March of Dimes in Atlanta said data from her city illustrate the point.

Atlanta is “the number one income inequality city in the country,” she said, adding that the gap between the haves and have-nots is so great that a child born into a low-income family has only a 4% chance of escaping poverty in her lifetime.

“Who is in poverty?” she said. “Black women of reproductive age.”

Mason went on: “Pregnant women do not live in a vacuum. If we have a mom that is poor, if we have a mom who is food insecure, who’s housing insecure, all of these outcomes are going to impact her pregnancy journey.”

Matthews agreed, pointing out that financial insecurity often keeps women from seeking help in the first place — even help that’s free. Her organization began offering diapers and wipes at its emotional support groups because so many mothers otherwise couldn’t afford to attend.

“I’ll never have someone sit across my desk and need diapers, because diapers start right now at about $25 a case,” she said, recalling her own experience being told she “made 73 cents [per hour] too much” to qualify for temporary public assistance.

‘Poor People Know What to Do’

To address those root economic pressures, Mason’s organization piloted a guaranteed basic income program in two high-poverty Atlanta ZIP codes. The idea, she said. traces back to a quote attributed to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“Give them money to start to pull themselves out of poverty. And poor people know what to do… they’re making it happen,” Mason quoted King as saying. The program gave 25 pregnant women $1,000 a month for a year, no strings attached.

“The premise is that we know we’re not going to be able to make a change in that indicator in one year,” she said. “But if we start there, right, that’s the gold standard — high rates of preterm birth — if we start to reduce the stress and strain of these moms, then eventually they will have better birthing outcomes.”

Still, the panelists agreed that even where community solutions exist, policies and institutional barriers often stand between pregnant women and the help they need.

For example, Felix said, most insurance still doesn’t cover midwifery care, and many states require midwives to practice only under a physician’s supervision. When midwives refer patients to hospitals for a higher level of care, as they are trained to do, they are often met with hostility rather than cooperation.

She described one case in which a midwife rushed a client to the hospital due to complications–only for hospital staff to throw shade on the client: “So that’s the girl that tried to have the baby at home.”

Reforming the System

Felix called for insurance reform, less restrictive licensing laws, and broader physician education about the different types of midwifery care.

“All states should allow midwifery and all paths to midwifery,” she said. “Not just nurse midwifery and certified community midwifery, but also traditional midwifery and apprenticeship.”

Ultimately, panelists agreed that no single organization can solve the crisis alone and that trying to do so only slows progress. “We should not all be doing ‘all the things,’” Matthews said. “We have to start leaning into accountability for the roles that we play.”

Mason, who is also a certified doula, echoed the point.

“The solutions are already in the community,” she said. “Collectively putting aside our egos, how can we do this bigger but address what’s happening in our community now? Because we can’t wait.”

For Felix, the path forward also means reconnecting with practices Black communities relied on for generations before they could access the modern medical system.

“We need to go back and reclaim some of the ancestral knowledge that we’ve had,” she said, describing midwifery as one way to restore what she called “mothering the mother” — the community support many new parents, including herself, have had to go without.

“I lost my mother four months before I had a baby, and I was a mother,” she said. “I did it by myself.”

By reviving that collective care, so prevalent in Black communities, it is possible to reverse the crisis: “We can address it in a collective way, and tap into the collectivist mindset that is part of African descended people. We are collectivist and communal, and we are really tapping into those superpowers that we have.”

Based on reporting by Seattle Medium.

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Black History

Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions

As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.

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6 days ago

August 30, 2026

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Jackie Wright of Wright Enterprises. Photo courtesy of Wright Enterprises.

By Carla Thomas

Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.

As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.

Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.

The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.

“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.

That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.

“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.

Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.

“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.

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Black History

BOOK REVIEW: Every Inch of a Lady

“Born, bred, toasted, buttered, jellied, and honeyed in Harlem” in 1937, Audrey Smaltz was a force to be reckoned with almost from the time she could walk. Her parents imbued confidence in her; they nurtured her creativity and sent her to charm school, but they never allowed her to create a stir.

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6 days ago

August 30, 2026

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Audrey Smaltz' latest book "Every Inch a Lady" with Alina Mitchell, is a colorful autobiographical story following a young Black model's pursuit to become a fashion designer in New York City during the pre-Civil Rights era.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Audrey Smaltz with Alina Mitchell, foreword by Michael Kors, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Amistad, SRP: $27.99, Page Count: 256 Pages, Snaps, zippers, buttons, ties.

Toss that garment on, pull it up, wrap it around; you know what you like and how to wear it. The color is perfect for your skin tone, and the fabric enhances your figure. Yep, you always look your best and, as in the new book “Every Inch a Lady” by Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell), that best is fabulous.

“That,” says Smaltz, “is not what ladies did.”

By the time she was a teenager, Smaltz was modeling for New York City designers. Shortly thereafter, she started working for a married man with whom she had an affair, and whom she loved very much. She broke up with him, attended college, and worked a series of jobs that taught her about fashion and jobs that didn’t seem to fit her. An ill-fated marriage took her to Chicago, where she ultimately landed a position that sent her to work in Ebony magazine’s New York office.

Working at Ebony was a career-changer, in a way. Smaltz traveled the world and learned more about fashion, but she didn’t exactly get along with her boss.

Finally, seizing an opportunity, Smaltz decided to launch her own company, Audrey Smaltz, Inc., a “fashion production business,” but she couldn’t get any designers to take a chance on her. Undaunted, she reorganized, re-branded, hit the streets, and knocked on doors until she finally found one client, which led to many others.

Through it all, her personal life was a whirlwind. She dated “more men than you can shake a book at,” settling down occasionally, briefly. Fashion had always been her first love, but she accidentally found real love, “the love of a woman,” at a leadership course…

There’s an old saying that writers need to add lots of “color” into their stories. Read a little of “Every Inch a Lady,” and you’ll notice immediately that author Audrey Smaltz (with Alina Mitchell) quite literally takes that to heart by mentioning nearly every color of the spectrum here. Hmm.

That oddity aside, Smaltz is a wonderfully lively storyteller, speaking with the energy of a woman much younger to the heart of anyone who loves fashion. That glee extends to collectors of vintage clothing, who will be delighted to read about the industry long ago and the way things worked then. Smaltz says she experienced racism, which is not unusual for pre-Civil Rights America, but doors were surprisingly closed for other reasons that will astound anyone who’s savvy about the fashion industry, even today.

There’s quite a bit of name-dropping in this book, but most of it belongs in the anecdotes, so you likely won’t mind. If you’re a fashionista, too, find “Every Inch a Lady,” and snap it up.

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Black History

Madeline M. Turner: The Inventor Who Made Juicing Easier

Turner lived in Oakland during the early twentieth century, a period when opportunities for both women and African Americans in engineering, manufacturing, and invention were extremely limited. Nevertheless, she designed a sophisticated mechanical fruit press that could process citrus fruits much more efficiently than squeezing them by hand.

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6 days ago

August 30, 2026

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A copy of Madeline M. Turner’s juicer patent.

By Tamara Shiloh

More than a century before juice bars, smoothie shops, and freshly pressed beverages became commonplace, an African American woman in Oakland, California, developed an ingenious machine for extracting juice from fruit.

Her name was Madeline M. Turner, and although little is known about her personal life, her remarkable invention earned her an important place in the history of American innovation.

On July 26, 1915, Turner filed an application with the United States Patent Office for what she described as improvements to machines designed to extract juice from fruits such as oranges and lemons. On April 25, 1916, she received U.S. Patent No. 1,180,959 for her “Fruit-Press.”

Turner’s machine was much more complicated than a simple handheld juicer. Fruit entered the machine through an opening at the top and was fed individually into a pressing chamber. Inside, a cutting mechanism divided the fruit. Two plungers then moved toward one another, using specially shaped concave and convex pressing surfaces to squeeze the fruit and extract its juice.

One particularly clever feature was the way the two plungers moved at different speeds and traveled different distances. Their coordinated movement allowed the machine to feed, cut, compress, and eventually release the fruit’s remains. She designed the apparatus to accomplish several steps mechanically rather than requiring a person to perform each operation by hand.

In her patent application, she also emphasized practicality. She explained that the machine was effective for its intended purpose and designed so that its parts could be kept clean—an especially important consideration for equipment used to prepare food and beverages.

Turner’s invention appeared during an era when the American food industry was rapidly becoming more mechanized. Machines were increasingly being developed to process, package, and distribute foods in larger quantities. Her fruit press demonstrated how mechanical engineering could make juice extraction faster and more efficient.

Unfortunately, historical records reveal little about what happened to Turner after her patent was issued. Her birth and death dates, education, family life, and later career have not been reliably documented. Even so, the surviving patent provides powerful evidence of her mechanical creativity and technical ability.

Today, Turner is remembered as one of the African American inventors whose innovations helped transform everyday life. Modern commercial juicing equipment is far more advanced than her 1916 machine, but the basic challenge Madeline tackled—automatically feeding, cutting, pressing, and extracting juice from fruit—remains central to food-processing technology.

Turner’s story reminds us that important inventors are sometimes nearly lost to history. However, thank goodness her patent will ensure that her creativity and contribution to American innovation will not be forgotten.