A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez

Reproductive justice advocates say that challenging stigma, centering equity, and demonstrating unconditional kindness are vital to providing inclusive care.
I had no one to support me after my abortion senior year of high school, mostly because seeking support would mean telling someone my secret.
At the time, I lived with my aunt during the week to attend the high school in her affluent neighborhood. Though she was a Black woman, her predominantly White and Asian community was different fro...

I’ve spent most of the last 11 years searching for the words to justify the abortion I had at 17. And I’ve been trapped in a painful cycle of self-criticism and discomfort ever since.
Don’t get me wrong; I know that abortion was right for me. But the “love the sinner and hate the sin” support I experienced at a “crisis pregnancy center” was just insidious enough to convince me that good people didn’t terminate pregnancies. And if I held any linger...

Trina Greene Brown has dedicated the entire month of August to resting. Like many other Black Americans, the last few months of continuous bad news has weighed heavily on her, from the disproportionate numbers of Black Americans dying from the coronavirus to the devastating shootings that continue to rock the country.
“For personal and professional sustainability and [to] ensure that I do not burn out, I am using the month of August for resting as a form of resistance,” she says.
Greene Brown...

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According to Ph.D., a psychologist and host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, black girls are often characterized as “little women.” Teachers, and even parents, may expect black girls to exceed age-appropriate levels of responsibility at home or assume they don’t need to be comforted after emotionally distressing events, according to researchers.

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, an assistant professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, suggested further engaging young children in black history by showing them examples of local heroes: “We often focus on key figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks,” he said. “However, it’s also important to consider local community leaders who have made contributions.”

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Guest post by A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez
Our guest blogger is A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez. A writer and researcher who visited the State Archives, she discovered something she didn’t expect to see in our collections: herself. We were delighted to read her account of her visit, and to share it with you.
This essay was originally published in The New Territory magazine, Issue 9, 2020.
I was fresh out of college with idealized images of life after graduation when my new husband dropped two bo...

In this op-ed, A. Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez explores how Black women are left vulnerable, even in movements supposedly designed to uplift them.
It’s never been as intensely obvious to me that the world doesn’t see Black women and girls — both cis and trans — as worthy of protection as the day that I read of Crystal Richards’ death.
Her boyfriend, a man with whom many of my friends had graduated from high school, has been charged with first-degree felony murder, according to the Waco Tribune-H...

There were no words to describe how much I hurt the night I read of Elijah McClain for the first time. I unwillingly came across the story of this 23-year-old autistic Black man on my Instagram timeline. He died last year following a chokehold and a ketamine injection administered by police. Once I was made aware of what happened to him, I saw his story everywhere, including in the fears that I held for my family.
By then, I’d grown accustomed to the ritual of opening my apps to the news of t...

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When one of us loses a child, all of us feel that hurt; vicarious trauma is an integral aspect of Black motherhood.
My grandmother raised children in the legacy of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was kidnapped, beaten, mutilated, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River in 1955. My mother grew up in the shadow of Till and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings, where four Black young girls were killed and many others injured in what was the ...