Birthwork as Justice:

My Journey to Becoming a Doula

Members of the BIPOC Doula Network gather to celebrate community, advocacy, and culturally rooted birthwork. This group is dedicated to supporting birthing people of color through compassionate care, education, and justice-centered practices.

I have always been an organizer, an advocate, a fighter for justice. My work in community organizing, digital strategy, and policy was about shifting power—dismantling the systems that harm Black people and building ones that serve us. But over time, my understanding of justice expanded beyond the political and into the deeply personal. Justice isn’t just about changing laws; it’s about how we care for each other. That realization led me to birthwork.

How Black Feminist Politics Led Me Here

I have always known that Black women and gender-expansive people hold movements together, but I hadn’t yet made the connection between birthwork and liberation. The more I learned, the clearer it became—birthing is political. The medical neglect, the racial disparities in maternal health, the way Black birthing people are ignored in hospitals—these aren’t accidents. They are systemic failures.

Just as I fought for Black liberation in the streets and in policy spaces, I realized I could fight for it in the birthing room, too.

A New Chapter in the Fight for Justice

Becoming a doula isn’t a departure from my advocacy—it’s a continuation of it. Birthwork is movement work at the most intimate level. It’s about making sure Black birthing people are heard, protected, and empowered in one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

I step into this work with the same fire that has fueled me as an organizer, knowing that Black liberation must include how we are born, how we birth, and how we are cared for.