Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty
Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication.
"A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood—and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
“Compelling. . . . Deftly shows how distorted and racist constructions of black motherhood have affected politics, law, and policy in the United States.” —Ms.
"A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." —Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America’s systemic abuse of Black women’s bodies. From slave masters’ economic stake in bonded women’s fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood—and the exclusion of Black women’s reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.
“Compelling. . . . Deftly shows how distorted and racist constructions of black motherhood have affected politics, law, and policy in the United States.” —Ms.
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Community Reviews
This book was phenominal. It was a deep dive into what reproductive right/justice means for black women with a historical lense at a look how black women's reproduction was view in slavery and how that impacts our social perspectives today. Roberts goes into the topics of forced sterilization and compulsary contraceptives to even now current fertility treatments. Roberts even gets into the role welfare has played in controling black women's reproduction. Just an amazing book that everyone should read no matter what they think about abortion or birth control.
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