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Historian Tamika Nunley can see the Supreme Court of the United States through the window of her office in the Library of Congress, where she is serving as the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History this summer. It’s a great vantage point, she said, not only for looking out at landmarks of American government, but also for reflecting on the ways laws and judgements have influenced Black maternal health throughout American history.
“I think the Library of Congress is one of the most democratic institutions we have, one of the best examples of what is possible in our democracy,” said Nunley, associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). “It’s been a great synergy for me to be in the library and to think about the relationship between what the government does and the work that I’m trying to capture…The building is glamorous, but the work itself – I think we don’t oftentimes value what it means to live the life of the mind, that in order to produce this knowledge, we really do have to get quiet and we have to read, we have to study, and we have to try to understand.”
Nunley is using her time at the Library of Congress to build the historical context for The Black Reproductive Justice Archive, a digital collection of oral histories from people at the forefront of addressing the Black maternal health and reproductive crisis. Her project is supported by a New Frontier Grant (NFG) from A&S.
Today in the United States, Black women are three to five times more likely to face maternal death than white women, regardless of social, educational and economic status, Nunley said; Black infants are more likely to face life-threatening complications or mortality, and both are likely to receive poor treatment from America’s hospital systems.
The Black Reproductive Justice Archive will focus, at first, on Cleveland, with a goal is to eventually expand to other American cities. The archive will be available to the public online and feature a database of oral histories, critical essays, and multimedia forms of storytelling from medical and legal professionals, doulas, organizers and others.
Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.
Image by Andreas Praefcke/Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
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