Tired as a Mutha: Black Mother Activists and the Fight for Affordable Housing and Health Care

ABSTRACT

Black mother activists play a pivotal role in redressing community inequities. To address the work of these activists, I turn to technical and professional communication and reproductive justice to explore how ethos is central to their work.

KEYWORDS:

• Black maternal health
• reproductive justice
• ethos
• affordable housing

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I use the word Black and African American interchangeably. I define both of these terms as descendants of enslaved Africans who were forcibly brought to America during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. I also acknowledge that Black is also inclusive of people from across the African Diaspora; however, in this context I am talking about the experiences and culture of those Americans who are descendants of enslaved Africans in America.

2. Aid to Dependent Children which was later renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children AFDC was a federally funded program created to provide economic assistance to families with no income or low income. It ended in 1996 with welfare reform laws and was replaced with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) act (Gordon & Batlan, n.d.).

3. Rosewood, Florida; Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

4. Sworn in January 2019.

5. Black technical and professional communication (TPC) is defined as including practices centered on Black community and culture and on rhetorical practices inherent in Black lived experience. Black TPC reflects the culture, economic, social, and political experiences of Black people across the Diaspora. It also includes the work of scholars in the academy and the contribution of practitioners. In all, Black TPC contextualizes the experience and cultures of Black peoples through research, teaching, and scholarship (Mckoy et al., 2020).

6. California Department of Transportation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kimberly C. Harper

Dr. Kimberly C. Harper received her Ph.D. in Technical and Professional Discourse from East Carolina University, a Master of Technical and Scientific Communication from Miami University of Ohio, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She is the Associate Chair and an Associate Professor of English at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Her research examines social justice, race, and ethos within technical and professional communication. She also writes about the rhetoric of Black maternal health and hip-hop discourse. Her research has appeared in Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric, The Western Journal of Black Studies, connexions • international professional communication journal, Writing Networks for Social Justice, Technology in Society and chapters in edited collections. Kimberly recently published The Ethos of Black Motherhood, which explores the Black maternal health crisis in American society. She is the founder of The Space of Grace—a monthly podcast focusing on Black maternal health and reproductive justice. Follow her on Twitter @ronbett75 and Instagram @spaceofrjgrace.