The NBWHP worked to highlight the continuous impacts of slavery, medical abuse, forced sterilization and environmental racism on generations of Black women's health.

Situating Black women's health as a part of the U.S.'s legacy of racism, sexism, and classism

The NBWHP invested in political education at the individual and group level, community level, and at the national policy level. Political education also paired both political education and empowerment under the belief that knowledge was a good foundation but that political action could not be made without empowerment. This belief comes out of noticing the interplay between knowledge and empowerment in self-help groups.

Providing political education to Black women

In the 1990s the NBWHP established a Public Policy and Public Education Office in Washington, D.C. that endeavored on legislative and lobbying work around broadening the National Reproductive Health agenda and promoting other public policies that focused on increasing health access to Black women and communities.

Macro-level Policy Change Pursued by the NBWHP

The National Black Women's Health Project (NBWHP) implemented a multi-faceted political approach to health. Key aspects of this approach included situating Black women's health within the United States' legacy of racism, sexism, and classism, providing political education to Black women, and actively pursuing macro-level policy changes.

University of Wisconsin - Madison

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The NBWHP saw health as inherently political and recognized its links to other oppressions. THE NBWHP also recognized health's status as being affected by political policy but also sought to raise political engagement within its membership.

Political Approaches to Health

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

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