In 1961 Mississippi, a hysterectomy was performed on civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer without her consent. She was 44 years old. The act was part of a systemic tool of violence where over 8,000 Black women in Mississippi and South Carolina were given hysterectomies without their knowledge. This happened from the 1920s to the mid-1980s.

Fannie Lou Hamer thought she was getting a cyst removed.

Daughter Heart / Mother Spirit is a conversation across realms, a sacred dialogue between the living and the dead. It is a reckoning and a remembering. A poetic excavation of grief, longing, lineage, and love. In this exchange between me as a daughter and my mother’s spirit, may you witness the quiet power of ancestral connection as a path to healing.

One. Two. Three.

Heave.

How can I breathe through contractions

when I’m about to throw up

I wonder who convinced a generation of mothers to

never have a say or a break.

I wonder what my mother’s full recovery would look like?

But i’ll be at work, probably won’t think too much

about it while your workday awaits you.

‘You could die, the baby as well' he explained, ‘you need to be admitted immediately’ he continued. My worst nightmare was coming to past, I didn’t want to be cut open. Most importantly I also didn’t want to endanger my baby or myself. Sure this pregnancy had seemed to span years especially in the last trimester.