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a living timeline of

Reproductive & Birth Justice History

This timeline is ever evolving, honoring the past, recognizing the present, and planting seeds for the future. It documents key eras and events in Reproductive and Birth Justice history leading to where we are in Illinois today. Together, the future is shaped through collective movement, informed by what came before.

Special thanks to the timeline creators:
Vision & Content:
Shariah Sanders
Brought to visual form by:
Kristen Mantell

This timeline is ever evolving, honoring the past, recognizing the present, and planting seeds for the future. It documents key eras and events in Reproductive and Birth Justice history leading to where we are in Illinois today. Together, the future is shaped through collective movement, informed by what came before.

The timeline begins at the base of the tree with acknowledgment of ancestral knowledge and Indigenous wisdom that have informed reproductive and birth justice work. Each tree ring represents a moment in time, marking collective actions, resistance, and transformation across generations.

As the timeline rises, it moves beyond the tree and into the sky, where a flowing river of change weaves among the stars. The stars represent ancestors whose presence continues to guide and illuminate the path forward, holding memory, wisdom, and possibility.

Together, the elements of this timeline connect past, present, and future, emphasizing that progress is built through collective movement, historical awareness, and continued action.

Special thanks to the timeline creators:
Vision & Content: Shariah Sanders
Brought to visual form by: Kristen Mantell

Black Midwifery Collective Reproductive and Birth Justice Timeline
Start from the roots (Scroll Up the page)
START FROM MODERN DAY (Scroll down the page)
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PRESENT & ONGOING

Today, Chicago’s South Side remains an obstetric care desert, as hospitals providing prenatal, gynecological, and postpartum services continue to close at alarming rates, leaving communities with limited access to essential maternal healthcare. This and many more reasons are why we gather today.

RJ + BJ Together – Illinois, and Chicago in particular, remains a hub for reproductive justice (RJ) leadership and birth justice (BJ) organizing. Black Midwifery Collective (BMC) and other Black-led initiatives continue the legacy of Indigenous midwives, enslaved African midwives, “granny midwives,” and the Chicago Black women who named Reproductive Justice in 1994. Organizations such as BA NIA, Chicago Volunteer Doulas, Chicago Birthworks Collective, HealthConnect One, Black Midwifery Collective, Chicago South Side Birth Center, Mile Square Health Center, The Love Package Project, and Postpartum Depression Illinois are at the forefront of this movement. These organizations provide culturally competent care, advocacy, and support to BIPOC communities, working tirelessly to address disparities in maternal and infant health, promote midwife-led continuity of care, and empower birthing individuals through education and community engagement.

The historical lineage of birth justice can be traced from the work of Black midwives to the creation of a comprehensive framework by the Southern Birth Justice Network (SBJN). Learn more at: Birth Justice Origins.

Reproductive Justice Birth Justice Founding in Chicago

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Birth Justice Movement

BA NIA, Black Researchers Collective, March of Dimes, (Re)Birth Society, Melanated Midwives, Sokana Collective, Birth Roots Community Midwifery, Birth Center Chicago, BMC (Black Midwifery Collective) and allies uplift the legacy of Indigenous, Traditional and Black midwives, centering community care, breastfeeding justice, and perinatal equity in Illinois.

Medicaid reimbursement for doulas & home visiting programs.

Illinois passed SB 1822 legalizing Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) after decades of activism.

Several Illinois midwives arrested / investigated for practicing without a license – advocacy intensifies.

Chicago Beyond / City initiatives spotlight Black maternal mortality.

Illinois passes legislation expanding doula and midwife recognition; community advocacy pushes for Medicaid coverage of doulas.

Black-led organizations in Chicago highlight maternal mortality disparities (Black birthing people in Illinois are 3–4x more likely to die in childbirth than white counterparts).

Chicago South Side Birth Center secures state funding for the first and only Black Midwifery Lead freestanding birth center on the South Side of Chicago.

Trigger laws – 13 states ban or severely restrict abortion immediately, many more pass restrictions. Illinois remains a safe haven for Abortion laws.


Fetal homicide laws – Expanded in dozens of states, used to criminalize pregnant people( especially black, indigenous,poor and rural women) for pregnancy outcomes.


Impact – Hundreds of thousands of denied abortion care; thousands forced to travel across the state lines. Illinois becomes a midwest “Safe Haven” for reproductive care, with clinics overwhelmed by patients from surrounding states.

2014 – PCC establishes a freestanding birth center in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), one of only a handful in the country. PCC offers midwifery care, free childbirth classes, doula services, peer support groups, lactation consultant services, waterbirth, mental health screening and treatment, family planning, and support for pregnant people with chemical dependency. Importantly, PCC accepts both private insurance and Medicaid (nearly 50% of pregnant individuals in Chicago use Medicaid).

2020s – Freestanding private birth centers open in Chicago’s North Side, Bloomington-Normal, Burr Ridge, and Beloit. These centers provide midwifery-led care for low-risk families, offering prenatal, birth, and postpartum care, lactation support, and wellness services. They accept private insurance and out-of-pocket pay.

For 35 years, HMPRG’s Birth Center Task Force has played a pivotal advocacy role in advancing birth centers across Illinois.

Illinois’ first freestanding birth center, serving low-income and Medicaid patients at the intersection of Chicago, Berwyn, Cicero, and Oak Park.

Chicago organizations such as Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago South Side Birth Center movement, and Black midwives re-emerge as leaders.

2014 – Illinois Perinatal Quality Collaborative founded to tackle racial disparities.

Chicago organizations such as Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago South Side Birth Center movement, and Black midwives re-emerge as leaders.

2007
Safe Childbirth Act, legalized birth centers in Illinois.

Birth Justice emerges on the West Coast, expanded by scholars Julia Chinyere Oparah & Dana-Ain Davis. Culture maker and Black Midwife, Jamarah Amani, and Southern Birth Justice Network create foundational Birth Justice Framework and Birth Justice Bill of Rights.
The Black midwifery revival grows; doulas and community-based birth workers organize in Chicago to reclaim traditional practices. Healthconnect One and Chicago Volunteer Doulas Pioneer Community doula models.

First community doula model through an FQHC, serving primarily immigrant women. CPMs and CNMs collaborated, supporting 150 home births and 1,200 hospital births annually. Trained the city’s first Latine IBCLCs; program alumni went on to lead doula programs citywide.

Reproductive rights & Organizing

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1996, Congress replaced the New Deal-era Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with a new program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), under the disguise of “ending welfare as we know it.”

Although the majority of welfare recipients were white, politicians and media alike used gross stereotypes to pathologize Black women as the primary beneficiaries of the welfare state. As a result, states would cap the limit of children women could have to secure benefits, subsequently denying many many families income they needed to survive. ​

Led by midwife Valerie Koster., co-founded by Mary Sommers. This brave and courageous legal action led to expanded coverage access.

The term Reproductive Justice was coined in Chicago by 12 Black women, including Dr. Toni Bond and other members of Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice. They reframed the conversation beyond “choice” to human rights: the right to have a child, not have a child, and raise children in safe communities.

“Crack babies” became a term to legitimize a siege on Black pregnant women and the draconian measures that followed — hospitals began drug testing pregnant women and newborns, reporting mothers to law enforcement who had trained nurses to protect evidence, thus deputizing medical professionals based on their assumptions about an individual woman’s choices.

Between 1985 and 1995 at least two hundred women in the thirty states were charged with a range of crimes based on pregnancy and drug use. Many of the drugs were not crack, but pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by doctors and had harmful effects on the fetus.

Coined and advanced by Black Women activists, especially through the National Black Women’s Health Project (found in 1983 by Byllye Avery). Centered Black women’s health, dignity and autonomy. Founding mothers Byllye Avery.

1980’s – there were doctors who were still attending home births in Chicago in the 1980’s – Gregory White, Mayer Eisenstein, Dr. Ettner are a few important names to know.

Dr. Reneau Dillo was chosen to help open the first hospital-based birth center at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago.

This marked a significant step in expanding birth options for families, blending midwifery-led care within a hospital setting.

The Illinois Masonic Birth Center became a model for integrating natural birth practices into mainstream medical institutions.

Is a national training institute for progressive grassroots organizations, activists, and leaders. It was founded in 1973 in Chicago by activist Heather Booth (the same person who started the Jane Collective).

Key points about Midwest Academy:

Mission: To train organizers in strategy, grassroots base-building, and social justice advocacy.

Approach: Known for the “Midwest Academy Strategy Chart,” a practical tool used by movements nationwide to plan campaigns.

Impact: Thousands of activists, union organizers, reproductive justice leaders, and community organizers have been trained through the Academy.

Legacy: It connects directly to the RJ timeline since Heather Booth’s work evolved from the Jane Collective into broader training and support for justice movements through Midwest Academy.

Historic image of protestors holding signs about sterilization

Minnie Lee and May Alice Relf were 12 and 14 when they were sterilized WITHOUT CONSENT UNDER A FEDERAL FUNDED PROGRAM.

Roe v Wade legalizes abortion, but access remains unequal for women of color and poor women.

Sterilization rose from 200,000-700,000. Teaching hospitals across the south routinely performing unnecessary hysterectomies on poor black women.. We must question first why the starting number is 200,000.

Young Lords and Puerto Rican Activists expose coerced sterilizations. Black women’s health leaders amplify abuses.Women were pressured into signing consent forms during labor, often in English only, or told serialization was required.

Historic image of a sign that says Jane Chicago Womens abortion
Historic image of Reproductive rights protestors holding signs

Groups like the Jane Collective (1969-1973) – Heather Booth, Judith Arcana, Laura Kaplan provided 11,000 plus, safe, underground abortion services before Roe v. Wade. Black women’s rights were still left out of the picture. Black women Chicago organized for both birth rights and against sterilization abuse.

1965 Blaming the breakdown of the Black family on Black women by Senator Daniel Partrick Moynihan- “The Negro Family:The case for National Action”

The report justified racial class inequality and described single motherhood or female-headed families, and out-of-wedlock births as the primary cause of Black poverty and barrier to attaining racial equality.

Moynihan’s determinations continue to have support. His views are often touted by Conservative political pundits to dismiss blatant injustices against Black communities as the result of family structure, not exploitation and oppression.

Graphic of Chicago Maternity Center.

Founded in 1895 by Dr. Joseph DeLee, the Chicago Maternity Center operated out of the Northwestern University Settlement House on Newberry Avenue. For decades, it provided safe and affordable home birth services to Chicago’s poor and immigrant families, often serving those excluded from hospital care. At its peak in the 1930s, the Center attended more than 2,000 home births per year, while also training midwives, nurses, and physicians. The CMC embodied community-based, accessible birth care until its closure in 1973, when pressure to shift all births into hospitals ended nearly 80 years of home-based maternity services for working-class Chicagoans.

In 1976, the documentary The Chicago Maternity Center Story captured the fight to keep the center open and exposed how the medical establishment’s move toward profit-driven, hospital-based maternity care left poor, working-class, and BIPOC families with fewer safe birth options. The film remains a cornerstone of birth justice history and advocacy.

Early 1900s–1960s

Medicalization & Resistance

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Ida B. Wells (1862–1931):
Defender of Black Life, Advocate for Black Women’s Rights

Early Life & Background:

  • Born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
  • Became a teacher and journalist, known for her bold investigative reporting.

Anti-Lynching Crusader:

  • In the 1890s, Ida documented and published the  horrors of lynching, proving it was not about  “protecting white women” but a tool of racial  control and terror.
  • Published pamphlets like Southern Horrors (1892)  and The Red Record (1895), galvanizing both U.S.  and international audiences.

Move to Chicago & Activism:

  • Relocated to Chicago in 1893 after her newspaper office was destroyed in Memphis.
  • Married Ferdinand Barnett, an attorney and civil rights activist.
  • Raised a family while continuing her activism, modeling the duality of Black motherhood and leadership.

Women’s Rights Leadership:

  • 1896: Co-founded the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).
  • 1913: Founded the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, the first Black women’s suffrage organization in Illinois.
  • Mobilized Black women to vote and gain political  representation.
  • Defied segregation in the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C. by marching with the Illinois delegation instead of being relegated to the back.

Community & Policy Work:

  • Advocated for better housing, education, and political representation for Black Chicagoans.
  • Ran for Illinois State Senate in 1930, one of the first Black women to do so.
  • Left a legacy of linking racial justice, gender justice, and community empowerment—a  foundation of modern Reproductive Justice.
Grand Midwives Birth Justice History

When the Great Migration brought thousands of Black families from the U.S. South to Chicago (1910s–1940s), they carried with them the deep traditions of “Granny Midwives.” These were elder Black women — often without formal training but with generations of ancestral knowledge — who served their communities by catching babies, preparing herbal remedies, and offering postpartum care.

In Bronzeville, Chicago’s historic Black neighborhood, Granny Midwives played a critical role as trusted community healers. They:

  • Offered safe and affordable birth care at home for families excluded from segregated hospitals.
  • Used herbal medicine, prayer, and ritual from African diasporic traditions.
  • Taught younger women in the community, passing on oral traditions of birthwork.
  • Served as advocates for dignity in childbirth when Black women were dismissed or mistreated by white physicians.

By the mid-20th century, Granny Midwives were increasingly pushed out by restrictive state licensing, the rise of hospital births, and campaigns to discredit them as “unhygienic.” Yet, their legacy laid the foundation for Black midwifery in Chicago today — connecting directly to the work of organizations like the Black Midwifery Collective and other RJ/BJ leaders.

  • 1910s-1930s- “Granny midwives” in Chicago’s South Side communities continued serving Black families despite criminalization.
  • Mid-20th Century – Birth became increasingly medicalized; hospitals replaced home birth. Black families were disproportionately impacted by sterilization abuse, coercive birth control, and lack of access to safe, respectful maternity care.
  • 1921- Sheppard’s Towners Act funds maternal/child health but accelerates state surveillance of midwives, especially black and immigrant midwives.
  • By the 1950s due to state restrictions and racism almost all lay midwives, including Black granny-midwives, were systematically pushed out of practice or ousted. This led to most babies in all communities by the 1960s being born in the hospital under the care of an OB.

Oddly enough though there was a rise in midwifery in the 1970s led by middle to upper-class white women who wanted more choice in their birthing experience. But this rise in midwifery was almost completely done by white women who were now able to receive the education and navigate the racist laws and restrictions that had literally ousted Black granny midwives many years before.

  • The U.S. eugenics movement gained traction, promoting the idea of “improving” the human race through selective breeding and sterilization.

  • President Theodore Roosevelt openly endorsed eugenics principles, expressing concern about “race suicide” and advocating for policies that encouraged “fit” women (white, middle-class) to have more children while discouraging or preventing reproduction among those deemed “unfit.”

  • His administration’s rhetoric gave legitimacy to forced sterilization campaigns that targeted Black women, Indigenous women, immigrants, people with disabilities, and poor communities.

  • This era laid the groundwork for formal sterilization laws, which spread across many states by the 1920s.

With the rise of hospital-based birth in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black and immigrant midwives in Illinois (many trained through apprenticeship and oral tradition) were systematically pushed out by racist public health laws and licensing requirements.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a pioneering Black surgeon, founded Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Chicago.

It was the first Black-owned and operated hospital in the United States, and also the first interracial hospital with a nurse training program for Black women.Provident provided critical access to care for Chicago’s Black community at a time when segregation barred Black patients from many hospitals.

Dr. Williams later became widely known for performing one of the first successful open-heart surgeries in 1893 at Provident.

The Flexner Report (1910) restructured medical education in the U.S., favoring hospital-based, physician-led care and discrediting community healers. This shift entrenched systemic racism and sexism in healthcare:

  • Midwives Discredited: Traditional midwives, especially Black, Indigenous, and immigrant women, were labeled as “untrained” or “superstitious.”

  • Medicalization of Birth: Birth began moving from homes to hospitals, reframing it from a natural process to a medical event.

  • Exclusion of Women & People of Color: Medical schools raised standards that barred most women and nearly all Black students from entry, consolidating power among white male physicians.

  • Loss of Community Control: Centuries of ancestral birthing knowledge were pushed to the margins as hospital authority grew.

Midwest sister state, Indiana, became the first state to establish medical institutions whose primary goal was to sterilize women without their consent. Criminals, “imbeciles” whose conditions were often not backed by science or confirmed by physicians.

1600s–1800s:

Colonization, Slavery & Erasure

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Forced Removal & Colonization
European colonizers criminalized and suppressed Indigenous birthing practices, imposing Western medicine and disrupting Native reproductive traditions.

This medical terrorism was used to justify racist assumptions about the Black women and their bodies. Followers of his work embraced notions that Black women had a higher tolerance for pain when receiving medical treatment, while ignoring that these women were forcibly restrained under threat of death for these procedures. Such stereotypes have informed contemporary medical racism.

shells

Enslaved African Women brought to Virginia; midwifery knowledge carried into North America. Enslaved African midwives preserved and adapted ancestral practices, shaping African American birth traditions for centuries to come:

  • Herbal Medicine & Remedies: Used plants such as hibiscus, kola, ginger, okra, and castor oil to support fertility, ease labor, and aid postpartum recovery.

  • Spiritual & Ritual Practices: Offered prayer, song, and blessings during labor; used charms and oils to protect mother and child; saw birth as a sacred crossing between worlds.

  • Birth Positioning & Labor Support: Encouraged upright birthing positions (squatting, kneeling, standing); practiced massage, belly binding, and other comfort measures.

  • Community Care: Served as healers, counselors, and guides, supporting mothers and entire communities; trained younger women to carry on the midwifery tradition.

  • Protective Customs for Newborns: Treated the placenta and umbilical cord as sacred; often buried with ritual; bathed newborns in herbal infusions for cleansing, blessing, and strength.

flower

Anarcha, Betsy, Lucy
and at least nine other unidentified enslaved women and girls worked together for Dr. James Marion Sims also known as the “Father of Gynecology.” Sims regularly performed forced surgeries, without anesthesia, on these enslaved women under the disguise of science.

(yes, despite being a “free state”)
Enslaved African women were forced into reproductive labor, denied autonomy over their bodies, and often forced to wet nurse white children. Their knowledge of birthwork was exploited, but not honored.

1700s–1800s: Settlers criminalized Indigenous practices as “superstition.”

1830s: Indian Removal Act disrupted Native birthing traditions.
Boarding Schools: Children removed from cultural teachings, including birth practices.

Persistence: Indigenous midwives continued in secrecy, protecting knowledge for future generations.

Illinois/Great Lakes Nations

Ancestral Birth Sovereignty

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Nations of the Land

  • Potawatomi
  • Ojibwe (Chippewa)
  • Odawa (Ottawa)
  • Ho-Chunk (Winnebago)
  • Peoria (Illinois Confederation)
  • Miami
  • Meskwaki (Fox) & Sauk

Other names we do not know, we have a moment of silence for you, much of your story was robbed,burned,dismantled yet you will never be forgotten.

Cedar – purification, protection

Willow bark – pain relief

Wild ginger – contractions & digestive support

Yarrow – postpartum bleeding control

Placenta burial: To tie the child’s spirit to the land.

Cedar steam baths: Postpartum cleansing.

Elders’ guidance: Spiritual leadership in pregnancy and postpartum.

Ceremonial & Communal: Midwives, aunties, and grandmothers surrounded birthing people.

Water & Land: Birth near rivers and lakes — water carried spiritual protection.

Songs & Moon: Ojibwe women sang Nokomis (Grandmother Moon) songs for laboring mothers.

Pre-Colonization

Global & Ancestral Foundations

Across the world

Universal Principles: Birth as ceremony, plant medicine, midwives as knowledge keepers, and community-centered practices.

Midwives were revered community leaders. Used plants like shea butter, hibiscus, and kola for fertility, labor, and postpartum care. Enslaved African midwives carried this wisdom across the Atlantic.

Indigenous midwives across Turtle Island (North America) held honored roles as healers, ceremony keepers, and protectors of maternal and infant health. They used plant medicines, sweat lodges, song, prayer, and communal care during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Birth was seen as a sacred passage, interwoven with spiritual traditions, land, and ancestors. These practices laid the foundation for birthwork in what is now the U.S. and Canada.

Chinese, Indian, and Filipino midwives blended herbs, massage, and spiritual rituals, integrating birth with cosmology.

Women healers and midwives were central in villages until witch hunts and medicalization criminalized them (15th–18th c.).

Indigenous Taíno and Arawak midwives practiced womb care, herbal medicine, and ritual baths using plants like guava leaves, castor oil, and cerasee. Birth was seen as a spiritual and communal passage, guided by women who preserved health, balance, and continuity of the people.

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