Black mothering is an inherently political act. Black women are more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women of any other race; black mothers must stand before television cameras reminding the world that their slain children were human beings. The author explores how to ensure her daughter lives with dignity and joy, learning how to parent boldly in uncertain times and cope with the anxieties that sometimes threaten to consume her....

"Jodie Patterson is the mother of five children, including her ten-year-old transgender son Penelope, the catalyst for the author's reexamination of identity within her own dynamic household-- and the wider world. This inspiring and highly personal debut memoir goes on to examine Jodie's extended families' African American experiences with racism and civil rights, and her own coming of age in New York City in the 1970s and 80s, and later on as a wife,...

"In her groundbreaking and essential debut The Three Mothers, scholar Anna Malaika Tubbs celebrates Black motherhood by telling the story of the three women who raised and shaped some of America's most pivotal heroes: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary...

"A Washington Post culture writer chronicles the challenges she faces as a Black mother in a mostly white mommy group in a time of gentrification, racial reckoning, and a global pandemic. Helena Andrews-Dyer lives in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., a picturesque collection of rowhouses near the center of the city that has become increasingly gentrified in the last decade. After having her first child a few years ago, she joined...

"The story of the mother of Emmett Till, and how she channeled grief over her son's death into a call to action for the civil rights movement"--Provided by publisher

"One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris's round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless and unresponsive. At the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor's life will never be the same. With every question the doctors answer about Tophs's increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. This is a stirring and radiantly written examination of...

"A powerfully moving meditation on race, climate, environmental justice--and what it takes to find shelter"--