Published in 1997, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, remains a best-selling book on race, gender, and reproductive freedom more than twenty years later. It documents a long history of regulation of Black women’s bodies in the United States, beginning with the legal status of enslaved women as property, and explains its crucial importance to both reproductive and racial politics in America. Today, these devaluing ideologies, laws, and policies have expanded in new guises that help to perpetuate race and gender injustice in the health care, law enforcement, welfare, and foster care systems. At the same time, the rise of an exciting reproductive justice movement has provided a new framework for envisioning a more humane and equitable society. In an era where reproductive freedom is increasingly under assault, understanding and advocating for reproductive justice is more urgent than ever.
Co-sponsors: Center for Black Studies Research, Dept of Black Studies, Feminist Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Hull Chair of Feminist Studies, AS Black Women’s Health Collaborative
Photo credit: Chris Crisman
