Radical mothering as a pathway to liberation

Abstract

I weave several threads in this essay, including the history of obstetrics and traditional Black midwifery, the devastating statistics of Black infant and maternal mortality rates, the experiences of eastern Congolese mama activists, the written and lived testimonies of Black North American mama activists, and my personal narratives to illustrate that the practice of mothering is fundamental to creating co-liberatory revolutionary movements and societies. This essay shows how mama activists, in particular Black mama activists, are taking great risks to their lives in the face of white patriarchal structures and in the midst of the ‘afterlife of slavery’ in order to honour the fallen and create a more just future. It also questions scholar-activists as to how they, whose scholarship is built off of the work of these mama activists, redistribute the life and death risk that mama activists shoulder to create the just world scholar-activists claim to desire.