Michelle Browder | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1971 |
| Notable work | Mothers of Gynecology Monument, You May Feel a Little Pressure |
| Awards | USA Today Woman of the Year, Alabama 2022 |
| Website | https://www.anarchalucybetsey.org/ |
Michelle Browder (born 1971) is an American artist and activist known for her sculptures in Montgomery, Alabama, and historical tours of the area.
Browder was born in Denver, Colorado and her family moved to Verbena, Alabama before she started school. [1] Her father, Curtis Browder was a prison chaplain, the first Black person to serve in this role in Alabama. [2] Browder's aunt is Aurelia Browder, who was arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus and was the plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle. [3] As a child, Browder was encouraged by her father to express her anger through art and creativity, which led to her attending the Art Institute of Atlanta. [4]
Browder is known for her activism, her tours of Montgomery, Alabama, and her outdoor sculptures. [5] She founded two youth non-profit programs to help young people in Alabama: "I Am More Than" [6] and More Up Cafe. [7] She has also worked to provide homes to people in Alabama [8] During the time from 2002 to 2007, she opened a restaurant called PJR's Fish and BBQ Restaurants. [9] [10] She campaigned for Barack Obama prior to the 2008 election, [11] [12] [13] and talked about black entrepreneurs opening new businesses in 2018 on the PBS NewsHour. [14] Browder is the owner and operator of More Than Tours, a tour company which provides educational tours about racial bias and history to students and tourists in Montgomery, Alabama. [15] [16] [17] Browder announced in 2020 [18] that she was creating a monument to the mothers of gynecology, enslaved women including Anarcha Westcott, who were operated on by J. Marion Sims in the 1840s. [6] [19] She then, in March 2021, held an event in Los Angeles where she asked the public to bring discarded metal objects so they could be melted down to be formed into the monument. "Discarded objects represent how Black women have been treated in this country,” Browder said to The Los Angeles Times. “But it also represents the beauty that’s in the broken and the discarded." [6] Browder first learned of Sims while a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta. [20] [21] She said to the San Francisco Chronicle: "If you’ve ever had a pap smear, you have Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey to thank." [22]
In 2020, Browder designed a mural for Black Lives Matter that was painted near the site of Montgomery's former slave market and was featured on The TODAY show. [23] Browder's work has been featured in The New York Times as a notable representation of Montgomery's complicated past [24] and as a representation of the evolution of civil rights [17] as well as commemorating the centennial ratification of women's right to vote. [25] She was the designer and artist of #TheMarchContinues Mural at the Southern Poverty Law Center. [26] [27]
February 27, 2023 she was again featured on the PBS Newshour discussing her mothers of gynecology public art. [28]
In May 2023, Browder announced that she has acquired the 33 South Perry street and it will be transformed into the Mothers of Gynecology Health and Wellness Museum and Clinic, providing resources to uninsured women, medical practitioners, midwives and doulas. [29]
In 2020 Browder was given the Community Hero Award by the Mayor of Montgomery, Todd Strange, for her efforts as a bridge builder in her community using art, history, and conservation. [30] Governor Kay Ivey presented Browder with the Rising Star in Tourism Award from the state of Alabama. [30]
In 2022, Browder was named as one of USA Today's Women of the Year, which recognizes women who have made a significant impact. [31]
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Claudette Colvin is an American pioneer of the 1950s civil rights movement and retired nurse aide. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. It occurred nine months before the similar, more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks, secretary of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), helped spark the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.
Mary Louise Ware is an African-American civil rights activist. She was arrested in October 1955 at the age of 18 in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on the segregated bus system. She is one of several women who were arrested for this offense prior to Rosa Parks that year. Parks was the figure around whom the Montgomery bus boycott was organized, starting December 5, 1955.
Edgar Daniel Nixon, known as E. D. Nixon, was an American civil rights leader and union organizer in Alabama who played a crucial role in organizing the landmark Montgomery bus boycott there in 1955. The boycott highlighted the issues of segregation in the South, was upheld for more than a year by black residents, and nearly brought the city-owned bus system to bankruptcy. It ended in December 1956, after the United States Supreme Court ruled in the related case, Browder v. Gayle (1956), that the local and state laws were unconstitutional, and ordered the state to end bus segregation.
James Marion Sims was an American physician in the field of surgery. His most famous work was the development of a surgical technique for the repair of vesicovaginal fistula, a severe complication of obstructed childbirth. He is also remembered for inventing the Sims speculum, Sims sigmoid catheter, and the Sims position. Against significant opposition, he established, in New York, the first hospital specifically for women. He was forced out of the hospital he founded because he insisted on treating cancer patients; he played a small role in the creation of the nation's first cancer hospital, which opened after his death.
Johnnie Rebecca Daniels Carr was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from 1955 until her death.
Aurelia Shines Browder Coleman was an African-American civil rights activist in Montgomery, Alabama. In April 1955, almost eight months before the arrest of Rosa Parks and a month after the arrest of Claudette Colvin, she was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider.
Dana King is an American broadcast journalist and sculptor. She served as an anchor for the CBS owned-and-operated station KPIX-TV in San Francisco. In 2012, King left KPIX to pursue her passion in sculpting and art. Her outdoor sculpture commemorating the Montgomery bus boycott is displayed at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. King uses historically generalized and racist ideas that require in-depth researches, to provide information on the normative misrepresentation of Black peoples' emotional and physical sacrifices.
Hazel Nell Dukes is an American activist. She is a past national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the current President of the organization’s New York State chapter.
Bettina Judd is an African-American interdisciplinary writer, scholar, artist, and performer.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, is a memorial to commemorate the black victims of lynching in the United States. It is intended to focus on and acknowledge past racial terrorism and advocate for social justice in America. Founded by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative, it opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018.
Rachel L. Swarns is an American author, news correspondent and investigative reporter. Since 1995 at The New York Times, Swarns has been a reporter, news correspondent, and since 2017 a faculty member in journalism at New York University. Swarns has been a foreign correspondent for the Times while reporting from Cuba, Russia and southern Africa. Swarns wrote American Tapestry (2012) about the history of Michelle Obama's ancestors, and co-authored the book Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives. In 2023, she published The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church.
Anarcha Westcott was an enslaved woman who underwent a series of experimental surgical procedures conducted by physician J. Marion Sims, without the use of anesthesia, to treat a combination of vesicovaginal fistula and rectovaginal fistula. Sims's medical experimentation with Anarcha and other enslaved women, and its role in the development of modern gynaecology, has generated controversy among medical historians.
J.C. Hallman is an American author, essayist, and researcher. His work has been widely published in Harper's, GQ, The Baffler, Tin House Magazine, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He is the author of six books, and his nonfiction combines memoir, history, journalism, and travelogue, including the highly acclaimed B & Me: A True Story of Literary Arousal, a book about love, literature, and modern life.
Black maternal mortality in the United States refers to the death of women, specifically those who identify as Black or African American, during or after child delivery. In general, maternal death can be due to a myriad of factors, such as the nature of the pregnancy or the delivery itself, but is not associated with unintentional or secondary causes. In the United States, around 700 women die from pregnancy-related illnesses or complications per year. This number does not include the approximately 50,000 women who experience life-threatening complications during childbirth, resulting in lifelong disabilities and complications. However, there are stark differences in maternal mortality rates for Black American women versus Indigenous American, Alaska Native, and White American women.
The Mothers of Gynecology Movement sprang out of criticism of 19th century American gynecologist J. Marion Sims' experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women who were unable to consent to their surgeries. Their surgeries were often performed without anesthesia. His work has been described in the late 20th century as an example of racism in the medical profession. Though Sims had many patients, there are only three known patients of his: Anarcha Westcott, and two lesser known women, Lucy and Betsey, which have been described as the "mothers of gynecology" in the United States, to demonstrate the contributions of their experiences to modern medicine.
The Mothers of Gynecology Monument by Michelle Browder was unveiled in Montgomery, Alabama, on September 24, 2021. It is located at 17 Mildred Street, near the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and is 15 feet (4.6 m) tall. The statues depict Anarcha Westcott, Betsey, and Lucy, three enslaved women who were patients of controversial doctor and "father of gynecology" J. Marion Sims, whose office was nearby. The statues were made from discarded metal objects—the artist asked for contributions from the public—"to symbolize how Black women have been treated and to demonstrate the beauty in the broken and discarded."
Michelle Miller Odinet is an American lawyer who was elected as a Lafayette, Louisiana City Court Judge in November 2020. Odinet was previously an assistant district attorney in New Orleans and Lafayette and a public defender. She resigned from her judgeship on December 31, 2021, days after a video surfaced of her repeatedly using a racial slur.
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