partners in movement
Who we are
This strategic plan is made possible through the leadership of the Black Midwifery Collective who led the development and facilitation of the strategic plan process and summit and Health & Medicine Policy Research Group who provided strategic planning facilitation and development of the plan.
From 2026 onward Health and Medicine will facilitate the implementation planning process and will manage the plan’s overall implementation. Black Midwifery Collective will be a community co-convener for the implementation of the plan.
OUR COLLECTIVE MISSION
Our mission is to improve health outcomes for Black birthing individuals, by actively addressing disparities in maternal and infant health that have disproportionately affected our community. We aim to revolutionize midwifery models of care, by increasing the racial diversity of Community Midwives to combat obstetric racism, and dismantle institutionalized birth practices.
Championing Health Equity in Illinois
Health & Medicine builds power and momentum for social justice and health equity in Illinois.
coordinatingcommittee
At the core of this planning process is a state-wide representative coordinating committee. This group met monthly for over a year and advised data collection and analysis, summit planning and implementation, strategic planning, and the contents of this report. This included drafting the mission, vision, values, and priorities for the strategic plan. The committee is composed of cross-disciplinary community-based birth justice leaders representing diverse and underrepresented geographic and racial communities.
In September 2024, The Black Midwifery Collective began the formation of a state-wide representative coordinating committee for the project to guide the state strategic plan process from beginning to end.
Black Midwifery first composed a list of different cadres of perinatal providers that provide community based clinical care and supportive care outside of a hospital or facility.
Charisse Montgomery
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I am Charisse and as far as I can remember, I have been positioned and afforded the opportunities to empower children, girls and women. From my days on the playgrounds, in higher education and in many job positions over my 20 year career in the healthcare field. I have always felt that my purpose was to stand in the gap for those who felt unheard, unseen and unloved. I have been positioned as “Mama” and/or mentor in one form or another to those that were in need. Those who have come along my path over the years seeking emotional, physical and spiritual support. I have been fortunate to assist because God has blessed me with capacity of aid.
Drawing back on my first time experiences as a new mother and reflecting on what my mama and grandmother implanted in me while in their care, I knew that I wanted to offer those things to my own family. After supporting and coaching my own daughter from prenatal through postpartum with my first grandchild, I realized that I wanted and needed to birth something that would serve my own community of birthing persons and their families in the same manner. I also wanted it to be guided with the same type of tenser hands that encouraged, and nurtured me and in that spirit, I birthed Black Butterfly Doula, full-spectrum doula services in St. Clair County, IL.
I started off at as a Doula Specialist in 2021. In 2023, I was promoted to Family Services Coordinator with the Integrated Outpatient Department. With this position, I became supervisor over the Pregnancy and Post-partum Women team, that I was once a part of as a Doula Specialist. The Doula Specialist serve 7 counties in down state Illinois. I am also the supervisor for the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY) team that partners Peer Recovery Specialists and Peer Coaches with INTACT workers from the Department of Human Services to service St Clair and Madison County residents in Illinois.
I am also the Board Secretary at The Doula Lab, a non-profit organization educating, advocating for, and empowering all birthing individuals regardless of race, gender or financial background.
Dr. Tracey Smith
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Dr. Tracey Smith is the Associate Executive Director for Public Health Practice at Illinois Public Health Association (IPHA) and the Director of the IPHA CHW Capacity Building Center. She received her Doctorate in Nursing Practice with a focus on health literacy and a masters in community health nursing with a minor in multicultural nursing. She worked for an academic institute where she achieved the rank of Associate Professor and was a healthcare provider at a Federally Qualified HealthCare Center for over 22 years before transitioning to IPHA. She currently lives in Springfield, IL and enjoys her family including two daughters and her husband of 30 years and a dog who runs the house. Tracey grew up on a dairy farm in a small central rural town in Illinois. Her parents did not have insurance and her father completed only 6th grade so much of her passion for this career has been built off those early years of her life.
Tracey has been involved in healthcare in numerous roles over the past 30 years allowing her to build skills to engage multiple types of health care providers and customers. She has led programs providing support services to local police systems, local health departments, federally qualified health care clinics, health care systems, schools, and community-based organizations (CBOs) through the integration of community health workers into interdisciplinary teams. She has received over $90 million dollars in grant funding to advance the profession of CHWs in Illinois. She also was instrumental in developing one of the first CHW training programs in downstate Illinois.
Since joining IPHA Tracey has been involved in developing a CHW 101 training program at IPHA that has trained over 1500 CHWs in the past four years and was the developer of the IPHA CHW Capacity Building Center. The Center also provides numerous CHW upskilling opportunities and consultation services to systems looking to integrate CHWs into their programming.
Her CHW training skills are built off her experience as a CHW for 10 years and as a program developer of CHW programs in Central and Southern Illinois for 9 years. She has presented locally, statewide, and nationally on CHW training, programming, and funding over 60 times in the past 10 years.
Tracey started her career in the maternal child field being a WIC and Case Manager at a local health department and then moved into being the charge nurse at a large hospital on the maternal-child floor. She has been a lactation consultant and childbirth educator.
Tracey has served on the board of a Critical Access Hospital, a rural school board, and numerous CBO boards and is passionate about improving the health and education of Illinois residents. She is currently a member of the Illinois Community Health Worker Review Board.
Chastity Mays
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Chastity Mays is a Certified Birth Doula and Student Midwife at Midwives College of Utah. Her Birth Work career began five years ago. She has served clients in Southern Illinois, the Missouri Bootheel area, and Paducah, Kentucky. She stands with and advocates for families who are underrepresented and, in many cases, simply not heard at all.
Chastity has spent a great deal of time researching the history of black maternal health in the United States and worldwide and has since obtained multiple certificates and certifications to further her education to assist in helping and educating families that she serves.
Chastity believes that representation and cultural awareness are vital to changing the exorbitant black maternal mortality rates. She sits on the Birth Equity Committee and the Promoting Vaginal Birth Committee with Southern Illinois Healthcare. Chastity is also an administrator with The Little Resource Center Carbondale which is a family and parenting resource center located in Carbondale, IL. We serve families, parents, and caregivers in the Southern Illinois region through material, educational, and emotional support. We also provide case management and health and social service referrals free of charge.
When she is not furthering her education or supporting families, Chastity enjoys spending time with her three children. She also enjoys reading, hiking, crocheting, and going to see plays.
Star August Ali
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Star August Ali—known affectionately as Sister Star—is a Black midwife, mother of four, systems-change strategist, and nationally recognized leader in birth justice. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Black Midwifery Collective (BMC), a Black-led nonprofit based on Chicago’s South Side dedicated to transforming maternal health outcomes as hospital systems continue to fail Black mothers at alarming rates. Through her work, Star advances culturally congruent, community-rooted care while reviving ancestral Black midwifery traditions that have sustained families for generations.
A descendant of a Grand Midwife who practiced in the 1940s, Star’s path into midwifery was guided by courage, legacy, and conviction. She trained as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) while practicing underground in Illinois for three years—at personal risk of felony charges—so Black families could access safe, culturally resonant, out-of-hospital maternity care. Today, she is one of only four Black Certified Professional Midwives currently licensed in the state of Illinois.
Recognizing that inequitable outcomes were rooted in broken systems—not individual choices—Star became a legislative advocate to confront obstetric racism and policy barriers head-on. She played a pivotal role in advancing multiple maternal health and systems-level bills through the Illinois General Assembly. Rising through leadership within the Illinois Council of Certified Professional Midwives (ICCPM), she became its first President of Color. Within six months of her presidency, Illinois achieved a historic victory with the passage of the Illinois Midwifery Practice Act of 2021, legalizing Certified Professional Midwives after more than 40 years of failed legislative attempts.
Under Star’s leadership, BMC has since reached another historic milestone: the creation of the first Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) degree program in Illinois, developed in partnership with Kennedy-King College. Approved by the Joint Curriculum Development
Council (JCDC) of the City Colleges of Chicago, the program is scheduled to enroll its first cohort in Fall 2026. This landmark systems-change initiative is designed as a national model and intends to be:
- The first midwifery school in the United States located within a predominantly Black community
- The first MEAC-accredited direct-entry midwifery program in Illinois
- The second CPM direct-entry program in the U.S. housed within a community college
- The only urban, public midwifery school in the nation offering access to financial aid
Star’s historical systems-change work provides a scalable roadmap for other states seeking to grow, diversify, and sustain the community midwifery workforce through affordable and accessible CPM education.
She is also a co-author of BMC’s Community Birth Study Report, which documents and uplifts Black birthing experiences across Illinois, and is featured in the award-winning documentary With Woman, recipient of a Grierson Award for its groundbreaking portrayal of birth justice and community midwifery.
Star has collaborated with advocate and actress Tatyana Ali to bring national visibility to this historic project and has worked alongside Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to combat educational redlining in Chicago—efforts that were instrumental in realizing the CPM degree program.
As Chair of the inaugural Illinois Midwifery Board, Star continues to shape state policy, strengthen professional standards, and build a sustainable pipeline of community midwives. She has shared her expertise nationally at institutions including Bastyr University, Midwives College of Utah, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois Chicago, Southwest Technical College, Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery, and more. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Crain’s Chicago Business, The Chicago Tribune, NPR, and other major media outlets.
Star’s work is grounded in a singular truth:
The solution is systems change.
Mary Sommers
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Mary Sommers is the Director of Operations and Perinatal Education Programs at the Birth Center at PCC, one of only a few Federal Qualified Health Clinics that has a free-standing birth center, allowing options and access for pregnant people on Medicaid and other types of insurance. Mary is also the Academic Affairs Director of the Midwest Maternal Child Institute (MMCI). MMCI trains Certified Professional Midwives and Doulas. She is a Certified Professional Midwife licensed in Wisconsin, and holds a Master’s degree in Public Service from DePaul University. Mary has many years of experience and the wisdom that comes from witnessing more than 2,000 deliveries over the past 41 years.
Early in her career, she co-founded Chicago Community Midwives, a not-for-profit homebirth service. This not for profit sought to increase access to individual seeking homebirths regardless of ability to pay. Mary was a World Health Organization fellow, studying maternal health and lactation programs in Netherlands and England. Mary has worked for more than 40 years in community health as an administrator and director of perinatal health programs with an expertise in developing doula, midwifery, home visiting, and lactation programs. She has supervised more than 40 midwifery students and trained more than 100 doulas in her various administrative roles.
She is the author of More Than a Midwife: Stories of Grace, Glory, and Motherhood and The Doula Handbook. She is featured in the book, Bright Lights of the Second City: 50 Prominent Chicagoans on Living with Passion and Purpose by Betsy Storm.
Tigee Hill
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Tigee Hill is a health equity champion and strategist with nearly 20 years of experience advancing more equitable health systems and community-driven solutions. As a Regional Executive Director at Health Leads, Tigee leads national initiatives at the intersection of healthcare, public health, and community, with a focus on maternal and child health, social drivers of health, and strengthening community-based care.
Her work includes strengthening the sustainability of community-based workforces and building partnerships across healthcare, government, philanthropy, and community organizations to advance systems change. A Chicago native, Tigee is passionate about ensuring communities have the resources, access, and decision-making power to shape the systems and policies that affect their health and well-being.
Tigee holds a Master of Public Health and Master of Business Administration from Saint Xavier University and is Prosci certified in change management and an iPEC Certified Coach.
Dr. Tatyana Y. Gardner
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Dr. Tatyana Y. Gardner is a public health leader, researcher, and health equity advocate committed to improving maternal and community health outcomes for historically underserved populations. She serves as the Director of Health Initiatives at the Springfield Urban League, where she leads community-based health programs addressing maternal and child health, chronic and infectious disease prevention, health care access, and the social determinants of health. Under her leadership, the department has expanded its community reach through strategic partnerships, mobile health services, targeted outreach, and programs designed to meet individuals and families where they are.
Dr. Gardner earned her Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) in Social Epidemiology from Mercer University. Her doctoral research, examined the individual, interpersonal, and structural factors that shape Black mothers’ breastfeeding experiences and identified opportunities to strengthen culturally responsive maternal health systems and support.
Her commitment to birth justice is also reflected in her leadership of Empower[HER]: Uplifting Black Mothers, a community-based maternal health initiative created to support Black mothers throughout pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenthood. Through education, breastfeeding support, essential maternal and infant resources, community partnerships, and connections to doulas and other trusted providers, her work emphasizes the importance of ensuring that mothers have access not only to health care, but also to the resources, information, support, and autonomy necessary to thrive.
Dr. Gardner brings to the Illinois Birth Justice Coordinating Committee a combination of public health practice, research, program development, and community-centered leadership. She is passionate about translating data and lived experiences into meaningful systems change and advancing an Illinois maternal health landscape in which every mother, birthing person, baby, and family has the opportunity to experience safe, supported, respectful, and equitable care.
Nikki Charisse
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Nikki (she/Auntie) is a Licensed Certified Professional Midwife, Lactivist, and Educator with more than two decades of experience serving families across California and now Chicago.
Her path into birth work began in 2003 when she supported a friend as a doula. What followed was not just a career, but a calling. After becoming a mother herself, Nikki immersed herself into community-based maternity care, supporting families in both the Bay Area and San Diego.
In 2014, while in midwifery school, Nikki felt a clear vision take root: to create a birth center that served those most often pushed to the margins — LGBTQIA+ family builders, Black and Brown families, immigrants, and asylum seekers — with clinical experience and deep cultural reverence. That vision became the San Diego Community Birth Center, where she served as founder and principal midwife, building a clinical practice dedicated to equitable, community-rooted care.
As Midwifery Director at the Chicago South Side Birth Center, Nikki stewards clinical and student development, midwifery practice standards, and the cultivation of a care model grounded in safety, dignity, and belonging. and Nikki is honored to be able to contribute experience, compassion, and culturally congruent care to families in Chicago and beyond.
Jacoba Cruz-Rodríguez
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Jacoba Cruz-Rodríguez (elle) is a Puerto Rican reproductive justice leader, sexual health educator, Direct-Entry Midwife, integrative health practitioner, and community strategist with nearly two decades of experience across sexual and reproductive health, abortion care and access, birth work, organizational leadership, and community-based education. Born and raised in the mountain lands of Borikén (Puerto Rico), she now lives and works between Puerto Rico and Illinois. Their work bridges ancestral and community-held knowledge, evidence-informed care, and movement building.
Jacoba’s interdisciplinary preparation spans Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies, midwifery, sexology and sexual health education, integrative women’s health, herbal medicine, perinatal loss and bereavement, end-of-life care, and somatic healing practices. Her experience ranges from direct care and accompaniment to clinical and nonprofit leadership, training, capacity building, and the development of community-rooted reproductive health strategies.
As Founder and Director of Montuna, Jacoba cultivates culturally rooted, trauma-informed approaches to reproductive wellness, sexuality, fertility, birth, abortion, loss, and healing while training and collaborating with doulas, birth workers, health companions, grassroots organizations, clinics, and reproductive justice partners. Their work is grounded in honoring community knowledge, cultural wisdom, and people’s autonomy over their bodies and reproductive lives.
Across clinical, nonprofit, and movement spaces, Jacoba works to strengthen community-rooted reproductive health ecosystems, build meaningful bridges between grassroots leaders, organizations, and institutions, and expand access to compassionate, culturally responsive, and autonomous care. Working across languages, cultures, communities, and geographies, her approach centers collaboration, shared knowledge, and community leadership, with a particular commitment to BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, refugee, rural, and historically excluded communities.
Karie E. Stewart
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Karie E. Stewart is a Certified Nurse Midwife, advanced practice registered nurse, maternal health researcher, and reproductive health advocate. As Director of Family Health Services at CHOICES in Carbondale and a midwife at Mile Square Health Center’s Auburn Gresham location on Chicago’s South Side, Karie is paving the way for Illinois to have access to full-scope midwifery care. She advocates for midwives to provide teen and adolescent reproductive health services, gender-affirming care, abortion care, and prenatal, intrapartum, postpartum, and midlife care, including menopause management. At CHOICES Carbondale, she is leading the implementation of the Title X family planning program, providing all reproductive options and gender-affirming care, and developing the site’s midwifery services.
Brenda Reyes
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Brenda Reyes, RN, CLC
Chief Advocacy Officer at HealthConnect One
Brenda Reyes is a bilingual registered nurse and certified lactation counselor. As the Chief Advocacy Officer for HealthConnect One (HC One), she has over 20 years of experience working with diverse organizations to create and implement peer support programs for birthing families. Her work centers and engages communities every step of the way. In 2020, her Op-Ed on Why Community-Based Doulas Are A Lifeline for Latinas was featured in HipLatina.com. Her work was also spotlighted in Prism and WellnessandGood.com article. Recently, she was also featured in Telemundo’s Mujeres Imparables by Telemundo for her work in maternal and child health. In 2011 – 2012, Brenda worked on Communities Putting Prevention to Work and on Chicago’s Healthy Places initiative and co-created the Hospital Breastfeeding Toolkit for Illinois’ State Perinatal Breastfeeding Quality Improvement Project. She led HC One’s National Birth Equity Leadership Academy (BELA) Community Projects Initiative. Currently, she serves as HC One’s representative to the United States Breastfeeding Committee (USBC). She has served as an elected board member of USBC and National Association of Professional and Peer Lactation Support Providers of Color. She participated in the Center for Social Inclusion’s National First Food Racial Equity Cohort; served as work group expert panel member of the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi) for the United States; and she is an Expert Panel Member for Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and Bread for the World Institute. She led the First Food Equity Project Initiative at HC One and participated in Sister Song Community Power-Building for Birth Justice Steering Committee. She currently leads advocacy and policy issues for HC One. She is mother of three and is a frequent speaker on lactation, maternal and child health, racial equity, reproductive justice and supporting birthing families.
Mekazin Alexander
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Mekazin Alexander is the co-founder and Executive Director of BA NIA Inc., where she champions reproductive and birth justice with a profound 30-year commitment to the Chicago community. Mekazin is recognized as one of Chicago’s first traditional spiritual midwives, utilizing her extensive background to provide a comprehensive continuum of care for individuals and families. Her expertise is certified in various health-related fields, including: Perinatal education, Childbirth education, Prenatal and postpartum yoga and Infant massage
Beyond her work in birth justice, Mekazin has over two decades of experience in human services, focusing on equitable access to housing, healthcare, economic stability, and social inclusion. She has held leadership roles in non-profit and government sectors, successfully managing and developing programs for Head Start, afterschool initiatives, and adult services, with a special focus on bridging the digital divide and supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. Mekazin holds a Master of Arts in Human Services Administration and is a proud grandmother of six.
Dr. Tuyet Mai Hoang
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Bridget Lally
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Bridget Lally is the Senior Technical Assistance and Training Specialist for Doula and Home Visiting at Start Early’s Professional Learning Network (PLN). She partners with community-based home visiting and doula programs across Illinois, providing competency-based training, reflective coaching, and technical assistance to strengthen high-quality, relationship-centered services for families.
Bridget provides leadership in doula professional development, technical assistance, and program implementation, supporting organizations in building sustainable, high-quality doula and home visiting services. Her work focuses on strengthening the capacity of professionals through reflective practice, model fidelity, and evidence-informed best practices while fostering meaningful partnerships across the early childhood and maternal health systems.
With more than two decades of experience in doula services, home visiting, and nonprofit leadership, Bridget has dedicated her career to supporting pregnant and parenting families while mentoring professionals and strengthening community-based programs.
Bridget is a passionate advocate for birth justice, reproductive equity, immigrant and refugee rights, and ensuring that all children and families have the opportunity to thrive through equitable, respectful, and culturally responsive systems of care.
past
coordinating committee Members
Lakeesha Juanita Harris
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Lakeesha Harris is an unapologetic Black Feminist, Abolitionist, is the current Executive Director of Chicago Volunteer Doulas, where their mission as a birth and reproductive justice organization is to center the lives of those most marginalized by inadequate medical care by providing doulas support. Previously Lakeesha was the Co-Executive Director of Lift Louisiana – centering policy changes needed to improve the lives of Louisiana’s women, their families, and their communities.
In 2021 -2022 Lakeesha wrote and hosted Old Pro News – a limited podcast dedicated to educating everyone on the current issues and activism of Sex Workers globally. This was a continuation of her advocacy as the former Director of Reproductive Health and Justice at Women With A Vision, Inc, in New Orleans Louisiana. While there she co-led a campaign with Representative Mandie Landy, spearheading the first comprehensive statewide bills in the nation to decriminalize sex work. She along with current, and other former sex workers, developed the deep south decrim toolkit, lodging a statewide campaign to educate the community on what it means when sex workers are targeted and criminalized. During the 2021 legislative session, a group of 119 sex workers and allies provided three hours of testimony in the Louisiana State House – a first, not only in the deep south, but in any statehouse!
In 2020, Lakeesha was celebrated by Bitch Media among its Bitch 50 Activist for her work to maintain abortion access in Louisiana and nationwide. Her twenty plus years as a Reproductive Justice leader had produced two RJ Amicus Briefs that were presented to The Supreme Court on behalf of abortion access, one in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case.
Before moving to the Deep South, Lakeesha was an organizer in Chicago for LGBTQ Rights, and in 2014 she and her former partner were the first couple to legally solidify their partnership with a Civil Union. They were among the many couples who sued the State of Illinois for Marriage Equality before the SCOTUS made it Federal law via the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling during President Barack Obama’s second term in office (2015). Lakeesha served as a Health Educator and Insemination Coordinator in the Midwest providing comprehensive care to sex workers, women, trans people, and GNC folx at one of the last remaining feminist Health centers in the country, Chicago Women’s Health Center.
Lakeesha’s essays, interviews, and critical work has been featured on The Daily by The New York Times, Democracy Now, The Advocate, and Rewire News just to name a few.
Dr. Nikia Grayson
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Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a Reproductive Justice informed public health activist, anthropologist and family nurse-midwife who has devoted her life to serving and empowering people in underserved communities.
Nikia graduated from Howard University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in communications and public health respectively, from University of Memphis with a master’s in medical anthropology and from the University of Tennessee with a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nurse practice. She completed her post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Nikia has more than 15 years experience working in public health and nursing, with her more recent work focusing on reproductive rights and justice, birth justice, and midwifery. Nikia has a deep love for midwifery and growing the workforce of midwives and birth workers of colors in the south. She is passionate about being a disruptor to the current healthcare system and creating new models of care that integrate midwifery and center Black and brown communities. She works daily to ensure all persons have the rights and means to make decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health.
Nikia is the Chief Clinical Officer at CHOICES Center for Reproductive Health, where they have opened the first non-profit comprehensive reproductive health care center in the country and the first birth center in the city. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for the American College of Nurse Midwives, and SisterReach, the only Reproductive Justice organization in Tennessee.
Jeanine Valrie Logan
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Jeanine Valrie Logan (she/her/goddess) is a relentless advocate for birth equity, dedicating her career to addressing disparities in Black maternal health. Jeanine is currently spearheading the creation of the Chicago South Side Birth Center, a nonprofit, midwife-led, culturally concordant, and community-focused haven for expectant mothers and birthing people on Chicago’s South
Side. She is also Chicago Beyond’s current Leader in Residence, where she receives funding and strategic support to successfully launch the Chicago South Side Birth Center.
In August 2021, Jeanine played a pivotal role in the passage of Illinois House Bill 738, a significant legislative milestone aiming to expand access to birth centers throughout the City of
Chicago. As a Certified Nurse Midwife and lactation specialist with a robust background in public health and reproductive health policy, Jeanine’s expertise has been instrumental in shaping policies that prioritize maternal well-being.
A passionate birth justice activist, Jeanine is a vocal speaker on topics ranging from breastfeeding and birth justice to the pivotal roles of doulas and midwives in the Black community. Co-editor of the book “Free to Breastfeed: Voices of Black Mothers,” she contributes to the narrative of empowerment and choice for Black mothers.
Beyond her professional pursuits, Jeanine is a wife and mother of three remarkable Empresses, all born out-of-hospital, reflecting her commitment to the principles she advocates. In her spare time, she channels her creativity into art, crafts herbal medicines, forages plants, and passionately engages in herbalist pursuits. Jeanine Valrie Logan embodies the spirit of change, working collectively with birth workers of color and allies to dismantle birth inequity and bring about transformative progress in maternal healthcare.
strategic planAdvisors
Over 40 additional community-based birth justice workers were invited to contribute to the creation of the plan’s goals, activities, and key results. These individuals participated in an all-day strategic planning retreat as part of the first-ever Community-Based Birth Justice Summit, and joined several post-summit action planning meetings to further refine these elements.
Strategic Plan Advisors: Mekazin Alexander, Candace Akintola, Melissa Banerjee, Charity Bean, Lisa Beltran, Lon Berkeley, Tori Berrios-Fryison, Tanya Blackshear, Nicole Woodcox Bolden, Patrice Bradford, Winifred Burton, Cantrel Connell, Nancy Cowans, Jacoba Cruz-Rodríguez, Ying Dai, Reneau Diallo, Dale Gardner, Kayla Goldfarb, Aquilla Graves, Mahogani Angela Jones, Aleya Justison, Khalidah Kali, Lesley Kennedy, Elizabeth Koch, Rita Ledbetter, Kristen Mantell, Lissah Mason, Melinda McMichael, Betsy Merbitz, Domineak Miller, Emma Miner, Juanita Ahuehuetzin Montoya, Kemeera Nimahat, Annette Payot, Gayle Riedmann, Maggie Rivera, Shariah Sanders, Chemaya Stephenson, April Threatt, Andrea Vaughn, Takara Wallace, Rachel Williams, Nakeenya Wilson, LuzMarina Zacatzi, and Zetanefert Zipewtu
research & Othersupport
Research Support: Camille Williamson, Kiarri Kershaw, Karie Stewart, Nicolette Moore, Timika Anderson-Reeves, Brielle Osting, Cara Bergo, Lisa Masinter, Emily Gallion,* Shannon Sweetnam*, Ying Dai,* and Kristen Mantell*
*Contributors to the writing, editing, and preparation of this report
Please visit our RESEARCH page for researcher bios.