Introduction

Since the beginning of human history, women like Mississippi's granny midwives helped women deliver their babies. African midwives were among those women brought to America during the transatlantic slave trade. They were healers who had been trained to serve their communities, a role they continued during and after enslavement in America. They were keepers of traditions and spiritual rituals and they understood the medicinal value of a wide assortment of minerals,plants and herbal remedies.

After emancipation, the work of the granny midwife continued in segregated Mississippi communities as the only source for medical care for most African Americans. By the 1920s the term granny midwife was synonymous with Black midwives in the rural South.