“We are making a claim that should be obvious but is often overlooked.
In order to collectively figure out how to sustain and support our evolving species, in order to participate in and demand a society where people help to create each other instead of too often destroying each other, we need to look at the practice of creating, nurturing, affirming, and supporting life that we call mothering.”
— Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Black single mothers deserve to do more than survive.
The support currently available to the vast majority of Black single mothers is not enough and only looks to barely provide for basic financial needs. It forgets about the needs of our bodies, hearts, and souls and keeps us in vicious cycles of financial insecurity and isolation, that do not nourish our growth, thriving, or support a future that ensures our children will be deeply well.
The compounded burdens of the high cost of living, unaffordable housing options, insufficient wages, the emotional stress of solo caretaking, and the scrutiny of Black single motherhood make it extremely difficult for Black single mothers to create a life rooted in anything beyond overwhelm. As mothers, we have been intentionally alienated and separated from the structures of care which are our ancestral birthrights and historical gifts.
But a different world is possible and a different world is necessary.
Our collective thriving requires the thriving of Black single mothers.
Enough with us being treated as scapegoats to justify our own oppression and trauma.
Enough with us being held accountable for other people’s lack of care and responsibility.
Enough with us being disrespected because “you chose to have children.”
Enough with us being under-resourced and undervalued.
Enough with us being treated like a statistic and not whole human beings.
Enough with our stories being erased and being treated as if our bodies, hearts, visions, desires, and versions of motherhood don’t matter — because they do.
Loving Black Single Mothers creates ways for the collective to show up for Black single mothers in consistent, tangible, and rooted ways that directly nourish and improve their material conditions.
Our goal is to interrupt harm and create spaces of respite and reprieve where ecosystems of care, love, and nurturance can be cultivated and activated for Black single mothers and our children.
Through our ecosystems, we co-create economies of mutual support where people who are financially abundant, time abundant, or skill abundant are given the opportunity to redistribute and share their abundance by giving directly to Black single mothers.
It’s economic justice in action.
It’s love used as a verb, made powerful + transformative.
It's collective responsibility and reciprocity.
It’s remembering and honoring the truth that we are all interdependent.
