---
title: "Black History Month: An Ode To Black Midwives"
url: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/an-ode-to-black-midwives/"
type: post
date_published: 2022-02-16
date_modified: 2025-12-05
schema:
  @type: Article
language: en-US
word_count: 1004
reading_time: 6 min
canonical: "https://arizonacollege.edu/blog/an-ode-to-black-midwives/"
featured_image: "https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Nursing-School-Faculty-with-Mother.jpg"
categories:
  - General
---

# Black History Month: An Ode To Black Midwives

## Celebrating Black Midwives Throughout American History

As part of Black History Month, it is essential to showcase the critical role of
Black midwives throughout American history, whose accomplishments and
contributions to midwifery are often overlooked.  Depending on the era, various
American communities called them spiritual healers, counselors, baby catchers,
birth helpers.  They were there to help the mother from antenatal care to
postpartum care, including breastfeeding support and cooking.  It was not until
the late 1700s the terms “midwife,” “granny-midwife,” “lay-midwife,” and granny
were used to describe traditional Black midwives, who were well respected by
their community and attended the majority of the births in the United States.

![History of Black Midwives](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/blackmidwife.jpg)

Delano (1941) Midwife wrapping her kit to go on a call in Greene County,
Georgia. United States Greene County Georgia, 1941. Oct. [Photograph]
Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

Midwives were also called doctors and hands-on healers in some communities in
the Deep South.  Some even assisted in the death process. Black women who were
enslaved attended births of not only other enslaved women but plantation
mistresses as well (Goode & Rothman, 2017).  Their birth work was rooted in
African traditions dating back to pre-slavery and pre-colonialization.  These
midwives came with the generational wisdom of childbirth and healing that they
conscientiously utilized as they took exceptional care of other enslaved people
and the families of their white enslavers.

Centuries later, during the early to mid-20th century, African American midwives
continued practicing midwifery in rural Southern communities, even as hospital
doctors and physicians replaced most midwives in Northern communities.  African
American midwives could receive as little as two to three dollars in payment for
each delivery they made.  At times, they even received payment in livestock,
such as a chicken.

Some African American midwifery trailblazers include (Varney & Thompson, 2015):
Mary Coley, a midwife who offered multiple services to families such as cooking,
cleaning, childminding, laundering, and helping new parents file official forms
and birth certificates, delivered over 3000 babies for three decades.  Ms.
Arilla Smiley, a “granny midwife” who followed in the footsteps of her mother
Georgia Williams and her grandmother Katie Jones, Smiley became a midwife
herself in 1963.  Maude Callen completed her nursing course at Tuskegee
Institute In Alabama in 1922.  She then moved to South Carolina in 1923, where
she began her practice as a nurse and midwife.

![Nursing School Faculty Blog Post on Black Midwives](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Nursing-School-Faculty-Blog-Post-on-Black-Midwives.jpg)

-My mother at the school of nursing in Nairobi

## Helping Woman and Men Pursue Their Dreams of A Nursing Career

Today, as I help woman and men pursue their dreams of a nursing career at
[Arizona College of Nursing](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/), I think of how
much we owe their predecessors.  The black midwives of the past took on the role
of labor and delivery nurses, often without pay or recognition. And they
certainly never had the opportunity of formal education.  They relied on
knowledge passed on from generation to generation.

The midwifery experience is personal to me. My mother trained as a registered
nurse and a midwife at the Kenyatta Hospital School of Nursing in Nairobi in
1976. Before pursuing an advanced diploma in 1977 at the University of Nairobi,
she decided to pursue midwifery to serve in under-served communities in rural
Kenya.  In pre-colonial Kenya, children were often delivered by traditional
birth attendants who assumed the midwife roles.  The traditional birth
attendants would train women in various villages to learn the skill of
childbirth, and all children were born in the home (Dietsch &
Mulimbalimba-Masururu, 2011).

My mother’s passion for midwifery led her to earn an advanced nursing practical
diploma in teaching methodology to teach other nurses midwifery. She then taught
at the school of nursing for more than a decade. Though my mother retired in
2016, her role as a midwife influenced my sisters and me to include midwives in
our birth plans when it was time for us to grow our families.

## Nursing Education Dedicated to Teaching The Next Generation About Labor and Delivery

At [Arizona College of Nursing](https://www.arizonacollege.edu/), I am lucky to
work with nursing educators that are dedicated to teaching the next generation
about labor and delivery. While we forge ahead with the latest techniques and
technology, it is important to remember those who cleared the path for us. From
the African American midwifery figures from ages past to the Traditional birth
attendants in Kenyan, these women have played a crucial role in many societies.
  Black midwives provided a valuable service for centuries and to millions of
families. I am proud to be a midwife’s daughter  and encourage others to pay
homage to the black midwives of the past on this Black History Month.

![Nursing School Faculty with Mother](https://arizonacollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Nursing-School-Faculty-with-Mother.jpg)

-Mum and I, circa 2016

_Catherine Chege is Executive Director of Enrollment Services, Arizona College of Nursing, Las Vegas Campus. She is passionate about access to higher-education and helping students achieve their educational aspirations.    _

---

**References**

_Blog • midwifery wisdom collective_.  Midwifery Wisdom Collective.  (2021,
December 14).  Retrieved February 7, 2022, from
https://midwiferywisdom.com/blog/

Delano, J., photographer.  (1941) Midwife wrapping her kit to go on a call in
Greene County, Georgia.  United States Greene County Georgia, 1941.  Oct.
[Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
[https://www.loc.gov/item/2017796981/](https://www.loc.gov/item/2017796981/).

Dietsch, E., & Mulimbalimba-Masururu, L. (2011). Learning lessons from a
traditional midwifery workforce in western Kenya.  _Midwifery_, _27_(3),
324–330.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2011.01.005

Dougherty, M., (1978)
_Southern Lay Midwives as Ritual Specialists. in Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles_
/ New York: Plenum Press.  p. 153.

Goode, K. & Katz, B., (2017) African-American Midwifery, a History, and a Lament
_.  The American Journal of Economics and Sociology_.  76 (1).  Pp. 89-105.

Varney, H., & Thompson, J. B. (2016).  
_A history of midwifery in the United States the midwife said fear not_.  
Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

---

_Information in this blog post is accurate as of February 16, 2022._

**Categories:** General