Note: This newsletter was sent to readers in December 2023. Headway publishes newsletters in the form of articles in conjunction with other newsletters on the site. Read it all here.
Dear Headway readers
Forty years ago, nearly 2,000 Black women gathered in Atlanta for a health conference at Spelman College. As Dara Mathis recently reported for Headway, this event was a milestone in the then-nascent movement.
After the article was published, I was contacted by several readers who had attended the event or knew someone who had attended the event. I followed up with some of them to more fully understand what drew them there and the impact the conference had on them. I learned a few things from our conversation.
I was struck by how participants openly discussed many aspects of their lives for the first time. When she attended the conference, Brenda Smith had just graduated from Spelman College and she was studying at Georgetown University Law Center. “That was probably one of the first places I heard about abortion,” Smith told me. “I think it's the first time I've ever heard people seriously talk about sexual violence, domestic violence. Maybe this is the first time I've heard people openly admit that they love other women, or maybe this is what I felt. I think it was my first time.”
Nancy Anderson was a young doctor working at a county hospital in Atlanta at the time. “I read a book called 'This Bridge Was Called My Back,'” Anderson said. “So I realized, 'Oh, there are people out there who are actually describing what it's like to be a Black woman.' They had all kinds of perspectives. I realized there were other people like that in Atlanta.'' Reading this book, which collects writings by women of color, began the process of inquiry that led her to the events at Spelman. Helped me get started. Thousands of similar individual catalysts inspired women across the country to organize buses and carpools to head to Georgia.
Perhaps the innovative message that resonated most at the conference was that women's well-being is worth time, attention, and consideration. Black women in particular faced a ubiquitous message that they had to endlessly sacrifice their own needs for the sake of others.
“It taught us not to be ashamed of our bodies, not to be ashamed of our pleasures,” Smith said. “That health was not a currency that had to be paid for the well-being of families and communities.”
This event created a national organization, the National Black Women's Health Project, now the Black Women's Health Imperative, and spawned dozens of local chapters around the country that would go on to hold their own conferences.
The circumstances that led so many black women to Spelman in 1983 are as relevant today as they were then. In 2018, nearly 20 years after Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported for the Times about the alarming mortality rates of Black mothers during and after childbirth, Linda Villarosa published A deep and intimate record of what is known about persistence. .
Years of careful research and scholarly consideration have reinforced the conclusions that would have resonated on that stage in Georgia 40 years ago. As Villarosa states in her article, “For black women in America, the inescapable atmosphere of societal and systemic racism creates a kind of toxic physiological stress, resulting in high blood pressure. and preeclampsia, and these symptoms can directly lead to increased rates of infant and maternal death. And that societal racism is further expressed in widespread, long-standing racial bias in healthcare, including ignoring legitimate concerns and symptoms, and resulting in poor birth outcomes even for the most advantaged black women. This may help explain why this is defective. ”
Matt Thompson, Headway Editor
Favorite links
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The political divide between left and right can feel jagged and irreparable. So I was heartened to read this story by Jonathan Wiseman about Silverton, Colorado. There, the consultants who came to create a master plan ended up “bringing residents away from microphones and mike into the smallest groups to help repair the town.” public space. ”
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Earlier this year, the Montana Legislature passed legislation to make it easier to build homes, an effort researchers say could help curb soaring home prices by increasing supply. Headway Fellow Susan Shain, who lives in Montana and writes for High Country News, explains how the law works and whether the state is doing enough to encourage the construction of affordable housing. We report on criticism from Montanans who feel that there is no.
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LAist reporters Briana Lee and Nick Garda are working on projects near the heart of Headway, focusing on housing and tracking progress. They are closely monitoring Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' promise to house 17,000 unhoused Angelenos within her first year in office. We previously delved into Houston's incredible 10-year effort to house 25,000 people and reduce homelessness by 63 percent. The LAist project gives us a front row seat to witness the progress taking place in real time, and the opportunity to ask questions.
your turn
We look forward to hearing from you. Where have you seen progress in your own community? Where have you seen no progress? What links would you recommend to the Headway team? Let us know at dearheadway@nytimes.com.
