American Civil Liberties Union

Recently, a colleague here at the ACLU sent around a story about an African-American woman’s experience giving birth that literally left me crying at my desk.

Birthing While Black, was written in the aftermath of the Blue Ivy Carter, luxury delivery rooms hype, but I’m sure Bey wouldn’t be able to relate to what Denene Millner went through. In advance of giving birth, Denene paid $800 on top of usual hospital fees for what she describes as a “Cadillac birthing experience.” Instead of receiving the posh experience she paid for she “was treated like a 14-year-old drug-addicted welfare queen, there to push out yet another daddy-less baby.” Her baby was immediately (and inexplicably) tested for drugs, she was put in a crowded room with other mothers and infants, was treated rudely by hostile hospital staff that were surprised when her husband walked in because who could ever believe a Black woman would be married when she has a child?

In the late 70s, my father and several other men in Liberia were tied together at the neck and brutally flogged for hours in public. It was a humiliation reminiscent of slavery days that stung all the more because these men were descendants of ex-slaves. Understandably, my father vowed never to return to Liberia when he emigrated to the U.S. in 1978.

Tori Mends-Cole is a Communications Coordinator at the national ACLU in Washington, D.C. She joined the ACLU after serving as adjunct faculty at DC area private colleges teaching Public Speaking, Communication Theory, Intercultural Communication, Analytical Thinking and Career Skills courses. Tori has a M.A. in Communication from the University of Maryland at College Park. She is of Americo-Liberian and Grebo heritage.

The Lovings' victory in the Supreme Court was a great moment in not only Black history and civil rights history, but in American history.

While I celebrate our accomplishments and the profound struggles of those who paved the way for me — including Dred Scott — the battle is not yet over.