Cries of Poor Black Mothers Too Often Go Unheard

Last updated on: July 15, 2014 at 7:41 am by Guest Contributor

Cries of Poor Black Mothers Too Often Go Unheard 2014-07-15T07:41:00-05:00 Guest Contributor

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It was several years ago — a hot summer evening in July — when the receptionist buzzed my office phone for the umpteenth time that day. “Why me?” I thought to myself. I was on a deadline. I had to prepare my sermon for the evening service.

“Yes?” I inquired after the third ring.

“There is a young woman here to see you.”

“I don’t have any appointments scheduled this evening.”

“No — she really needs to see you.”

She could not have been older than 17. She came down the hallway disheveled, with tears in her eyes, pushing her baby in a stroller. Before I could ask her name, she collapsed on the floor of my office door and said, “I just can’t do it anymore.”

When I finally got her into a chair she admitted, quite evenly, that she was going to throw her baby off the roof of her building. In fact, she was on her way home when she passed the church. The doors were open so she decided to come in.

She cried, and cried, and cried some more. The young woman told me the particulars of her story — young, black, poor and alone with a child — that echo the social realities of so many young black women. Notwithstanding the realities of postpartum depression and other forms of mental illness that are aggravated by social inequity, she had no job, no money, no permanent place to live, no food, no diapers, no formula, no support system to help her care for her infant — nothing.

“I just can’t do it anymore.”

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