Close-up of a woman with dark skin holding a child's head and breastfeeding, with another woman in the foreground showing her hand with a tattoo and painted nails, touching her pregnant belly.

Black Maternal
Health Festival:

Activating our agency
and self-determination

April 11th - April 17th 2025

Remembering the ways that have contributed to our resilience and perseverance.

Remembering the ways that have contributed to our resilience and perseverance.

We can all thank a Black traditional midwife for being here today….

Join us for the inaugural Black Maternal Health Festival 2025!

A full week of performances, workshops, movement classes, circles, and ceremony to commemorate the resilience, power, and brilliance of Black Mothers, Parents, and families!

  • April 11-17
    We also have special pre-festival launch for VIP ticket holders

  • The comfort of your own space….this is a 100% virtual experience (like never before)

  • BIPOC General Admission : Black Maternal Health Festival $299.00

    Gives you access to all general admission events of the festival and event recordings for a week.

    BIPOC VIP Seat : Black Maternal Health Festival $499.00

    Gives full access to all festival events including VIP exclusive gatherings, artist talks, workshops & one year membership to The Virtual Circle.

    Ally Seat : Black Maternal Health Festival $599.00

    This is a BIPOC centered festival & allies are welcomes. Your ticket gives you general admission & also sponsors a seat to a BIPOC attendee.

The Black Maternal Health Festival

This first of its kind, this virtual experience will provide tools for the community to address disparity while centering our joy and vitality. We will sit at the feet of hundreds of years of accumulative wisdom, sit with our grief, call in our Ancestors, and learn strategies and remedies that have carried us through the most heinous of times.

Typically we see that this week centers poor outcomes, death, and disparity. We sit at panels, watch documentaries and listen to keynote speakers leaving us feeling even more angry, traumatized, and hopeless. At this moment collectively, we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. I hope that after this week the light becomes clearer, brighter, that you can feel the warmth in your bones.

We will gather via Zoom, send out daily newsletter letters to guide you through the day, and there’s an exclusive VIP experience for those who are members of our online subscription based community, The Virtual Circle.

Trust me when I say, this is the community gathering you have been craving during Black Maternal Health Week….

  • While this week is centering the experiences, voices, brilliance, history, and future of Black people and families, all are welcomed. We are all impacted by the Medical Industrial Complex. While it is true that Black people are the most harmed and un-alived, we are all impacted by this heinous system. Centering the voices of the most marginalized is imperative in our collective healing and liberation. This festival is for all of us who care about Black people. This event is a safe space for Black people and will center us, celebrate us, and hold us! We will have various offerings through out the week that are for BIPOC only as to ensure we are cultivating a safe space.

    • Believe in the traditional midwifery model of care as the anecdote to us all thriving!

    • Wish to not only optimize our outcomes, but eradicate the Black maternal health crisis as a whole!

    • Value the wisdom of traditional midwives.

    • Wish to center our joy, vitality, and pleasure as a tool of liberation!

    • Are ready to have the time of their lives while being inspired like never before!

    • Have true love and appreciation for Black women, birthing people, and their babies!

  • This is truly a community effort. This festival would not exist without the many hands that have contributed. While, the vision came through Sumi, it was clear that it would take a collective effort to nurture it into fruition. Sumayyah Franklin is a traditional midwife, mother, and mentor of many. She knew from a young age that she was called to be midwife and has remained steadfast to her purpose. She is committed to the preservation and reclamation of traditional midwifery. Today she is caring for her children, supporting her community as a midwife, and facilitating her educational and community offerings both in person and online.