Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere

Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere is a visual prayer call with Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy. Black mothers are invited to share photos and stories of their moments of birthing in freedom. Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere will live as a freedom script + photo essay + story collage + soft-time practice portal.

ITALICIZED WORDS DEFINED AND EXPANDED ON IN THE GLOSSARY

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About the Visual Prayer Call

Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere is a visual prayer call inspired by Civil Rights Leader Mother Fannie Lou Hamer’s (October 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977) labors to bring visibility to the fertility freedoms of Black women in the South. Mother Fannie Lou coined the term Mississippi appendectomy to acknowledge the horrific practices of white doctors removing the wombs of black and poor women without their knowledge or consent. Mother Fannie Lou was also a survivor of one of these unjust procedures. While she is most celebrated for her work to bring voting rights to all people, she was also a lifelong activist for black women’s reproductive liberation.

Mother Fannie Lou was also well known for her singing of the Civil Rights anthem I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Set On Freedom. This song was sung at churches, at rallies, at marches, and on buses as people came together to demand change all across America. In the spirit of freedom that was nurtured and held by generations of people who sang Mother Fannie Lou’s hymn, Mother Mother offers a new prayer song for black mothers birthing in today’s world.

Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere invites black mothers and those who love black mothers to pour into the prayers of freedom for our birthing labors. May this song spread from mother to mother, from sister to sister, from community to community, from here to there and everywhere that black mothers are birthing, in all the ways that can be. May we sing and affirm and vision and seed and activate a reality where black mothers do birth in freedom.

Submissions are welcome as photos, audio, and written stories. Birthkeepers, artists, and other mothers are also invited to propose collaborations with the project.

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***Birthing Wonder***, May 2015, photo by Eleanor Kaufman Khan | Mother Mother leans against her own mother for support, as she moans through a contraction during the long night-into-morning labors of birthing her second born, Wonder, at home in her apartment in Washington, DC.

Freedom Script | Audio + Visual

The visual prayer call will be made up of a collection of selected black mothers’ birthing moments. These photos will be added to the visual collage that plays over the audio of the recorded freedom script. Mother Mother is excited to record the song in a studio with other mothers who want to join the chorus.

Photo Essay + story collage

Each mother submitting material for the visual prayer call will also share her story of how this moment is an expression of her birthing freedoms. Photos, audio and written stories will be included. The stories will be presented in a gallery as a part of the digital installation that is accessible on this site.

Soft-time Practice Portal

As Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere evolves, opportunities for deeper engagement for participants and witnesses will be announced. A soft-time practice portal will archive more stories, birth story development workshops, photo and film shares, recordings, resources from collaborators and more.

Collaborators + Artists

Mother Mother welcomes explorations of collaborations with birthkeepers, midwives, and other practitioners who serve black mothers and families. Mother Mother invites singers, musicians, dancers, photographers, visual artists, and technology artists who are inspired to participate in this project to propose possible collaborations as well.

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***Birthing Jubilee***, June 2017, photo by Eleanor Kaufman Khan | Mother Mother nurses a 2-year old Wonder while in labor with Jubilee who will emerge earthside in a few hours. Mother Mother is birthing at home in her mother’s house in Washington, DC.

Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere

/// Lyrics reimagined and written by Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy, inspired by the Civil Rights freedom script I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Set On Freedom, which was a reimagining of the Black church freedom script, I Woke Up This Morning With My Mind Stayed On Jesus. ///

Black mothers birthing everywhere
birth in freedom (well)
Black mothers birthing everywhere
birth in freedom (well)
Black mothers birthing everywhere (hallelujah)
birth in freedom
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah

Black babies born everywhere
born in freedom (well)
Black babies born everywhere
born in freedom (well)
Black babies born everywhere (hallelujah)
born in freedom
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah

Black mothers
Black mothers
Black mothers
Birth in freedom
Black mothers
Black mothers
Black mothers
Birth in freedom
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Black mothers
Black mothers

Black babies
Black babies
Black babies
Born in freedom
Black babies
Black babies
Black babies
Born in freedom
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Black babies
Black babies

Black babies born everywhere
born in freedom (well)
Black babies born everywhere
born in freedom (well)
Black babies born everywhere (hallelujah)
born in freedom
Hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah

***Birthing Bloom***, August 2013 | Mother Mother is supported at home by her sistermama to breathe through her labors. Her hopes to birth her first baby at home will soon shift when her midwife suggests they transfer to the hospital where Bloom will be born.

Defining birth, defining mother

Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere expands the meaning of birth to bring visibility to the vast birthscape of mothering labors and stories of black mothers. Invisible and visible mothers are invited to participate. These and more birth stories that center freedom and/or the reclamation of freedoms are welcome with photo, audio, or text:

Black mothers giving birth, preparing for birth, and laboring through life after birth
Invisible mothers laboring through fertility and the possibility of conception
Invisible mothers laboring through protostar births (early births before starseeds become fully human)
Invisible mothers laboring through release births (commonly referred to as abortion)
Mothers laboring through births where their child transitioned before or soon after birthing
Mothers becoming mothers through adoption and surrogacy
Surrogate mothers birthing babies for other mothers
Black mothers birthing freely at home, at the hospital, by the sea, in the woods, in the car, on a mountaintop, in the heart…
Mothers becoming grandmothers
Co-mothering labors
Auntie mothers and godmothers supporting black birthing mothers
And more! If you feel called to add your story to the prayer call, please share!

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***Birthing P—***, October 2018 | Mother Mother dances through the labors of a protostar birth on the floor of her home. She is dancing as the blood thickens and flows to honor the transition of life.

Potential spiral of creation (stages of evolution)

Initial Call: 15 April 2022 | Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere announced in the Fertile Friday love note in the Fertility Abundance Garden in celebration of Black Maternal Health Week; participant/collaborator interest form published

Welcoming Engagement: Official call for submissions opens

First Installation: Early submissions selected for premier of the Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere visual prayer call and the first installment of the digital installation portal; Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere soft premier

Continuing Explorations: Soft-time practice portal opens + collaborative-time story circles announced

Second Installation: Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere expanded premier + 2nd installment of the digital installation portal opens

Onward We Grow…: Studio recording of Black Mothers Birthing Everywhere + continued story circles + expansions of the soft-time practice portal

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***Birthing S—***, September 2021| Family fire ceremony outside our home to say prayers and gratitudes for the starseed that came but left early to return to the light. Photo by Mother Mother who is wearing Revelation on her back.

MEET MOTHER MOTHER

MY FERTILITY SUSTAINS ME.

Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy is birthing Mother Space Luminaries and creating a more beautiful world with mothers in mind. She is devoted to holding space for the mothers, and dreaming up innovative ways that everyday life moments can be softer, sweeter, and nurture more lovingly vibrant realities for mothers who want to live in the majestic fullness of their being.

Mother Mother is a spatial architect, dancing mother, fertility priestess, spiritual midwife, sacred nourishment practitioner, afrofuturist bush mother, ringshout synergist, and radiant superconductor of divine creation intelligence. She cares for the mothers in her village by creating soft spaces for them to (re)discover the bounty of their wildest fertility dreams.

Mother Mother is the generative pulse of the Fertility Abundance Garden, a congregation for creators and a sanctuary for mothers. She spends most of her days dancing by the light of the sun, bouncing around with the munchkins, nourishing babies from her body, and nurturing her children’s brilliance and discoveries at Wildseed, her family learning lab practice. Mother Mother is the co-visionary and principal activator of her family’s love-seeded enterprise, The Family Dances.

A budding astronomer who is fascinated by the correlation between the birthing of stars and the creation of our fertility codes, Mother Mother is also a writer, sacred storyteller, communiographer, soft-time practice portal developer, fertile soundscape artist, and liberation technologist navigating life as a black birthing mother and a multitudinous mothering entity. She lives in Washington, DC with her co-creator, Bushman, and their children, Bloom, Wonder, Jubilee, and Revelation.