From Yellow Fever to Black Maternal Health: African American Birth and Death Work as Community Preservation and Futurity

• In Event: Black Creation: Lessons for Living under the Shadow of Slavery and Empire

Abstract

In this paper, I explore the complex interplay between death and birth work in African American communities, spanning from the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic to contemporary issues of Black maternal mortality. By analyzing Absalom Jones and Richard Allen’s A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, in the Year 1793, I position their account as a form of death work that sought to protect Black communities and ensure their liberated future. I then link their account to current nationwide commemorations of Black women’s contributions to gynecology and ongoing efforts to address the epidemic of Black maternal mortality. Through this analysis, I argue that both African American birth and death work are fundamentally rooted in the preservation and portraiting of Black communities and futurity.

Author

• Olivia Haynes, University of Massachusetts, Amherst