I had seen my sister wear this yellow and black hoodie a few times.
Bold letters across the front read: The Mothers of Gynecology.
I didn’t think much of it at first. Just another statement piece. She stay rocking something that speaks volumes, but I didn’t pay it no mind.
It wasn’t until we started planning a trip to Montgomery, Alabama—to visit the Legacy Museums—that she mentioned the Mothers of Gynecology Museum. She told me the story of the woman who built it. How she handcrafted every statue herself. Molded them by hand. Poured love, grief, and truth into metal and steel.
I was intrigued immediately.
I said, Yeah. “We have to go.”
It was our first stop.
And heavy doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Heartbreaking.
Tragic.
Excruciating.
The statues were beautifully crafted—every small detail intentional. Names engraved. Scissors. Spoons. Surgical tools once used on these women’s bodies displayed on them. The hairstyles, the features, the posture—so familiar it felt like looking at sisters, aunties, cousins. Like looking at yourself.
And when I look into their metal and steel faces, all I could think about is that could have been me.
When my eyes move to their bodies—where there are holes, where there should be wholeness—I see emptiness. Pain. Sorrow. I felt it weighing on my chest. That’s when I realized that the weight was hurt and anger.
See before hospitals had bright lights.
Before textbooks.
Before white coats and titles—
There were Black women.
Enslaved. Silenced. Invisible.
And Although they were unseen in a country where they didn’t matter, Their bodies became the blueprint for modern gynecology.
They call him the “father of gynecology,” but history left out the mothers.
Their names were Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy—enslaved Black women forced into medical experiments in the 1800s. No anesthesia. No consent. No choice. Just pain, over and over again, dressed up and justified as “science.”
Their suffering built the foundation.
Anarcha alone endured dozens of surgeries so techniques could be perfected—techniques that would later be used comfortably on white women. The pain Black women experienced was dismissed because of a lie: that Black bodies didn’t feel pain the same way.
That lie didn’t die back then.
It still echoes in delivery rooms today.
It still whispers in clinics
and emergency rooms today.
These women didn’t sign up to be pioneers.
They were forced into it.
But they survived.
And that survival, that black body changed medicine forever.
Modern gynecology—fistula repair, surgical tools, reproductive procedures—rests on their backs. Yet their names are rarely spoken. Statues were built for the man who experimented on them. Streets were named after him. Meanwhile, the women who paid the price were erased.
Calling them the Mothers of Gynecology isn’t just about correcting history.
It’s about reclaiming dignity.
It’s about saying Black women’s pain matters.
Their bodies were never disposable.
Their pain was not void.
This is why Black women to this day is hesitant to seek medical attention..
This is why our actions screams resistance.
We stand in solidarity as we represent them.
Anarcha.
Betsey.
Lucy.
Say their names.
Honor their legacy.
They Will forever be The Mothers of Gynecology.