Browder Presents Margaret Morrison Distinguished Lecture
Talk will focus on Black people's ongoing struggles to access safe medical care
By Stacy Kish Email Stacy Kish
, the founder and director of 鈥淚 AM MORE THAN... Youth Empowerment Initiative鈥� in Montgomery, Alabama, uses art, history and 鈥渞eal talk鈥� conversations to fight for social justice within and beyond her community. She will speak at 好色先生TV鈥檚 17th annual Margaret Morrison Distinguished Lecture in Women鈥檚 History.
Browder鈥檚 talk 鈥淢others of Gynecology: A Conversation with Artist and Activist Michelle Browder鈥� will take place at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 23, in CMU鈥檚 Giant Eagle Auditorium in Baker Hall. The event is free and open to the public. A reception will welcome guests at 4:30 p.m.
鈥淏lack women's maternal mortality rate is four times that of white women, even when adjusted for income and education,鈥� said Lisa Tetrault, associate professor of history and lead organizer of the Margaret Morrison Distinguished Lecture Series. 鈥淏rowder's art is tangible, visceral and experiential, bringing these important political issues to life in ways that textual news stories often cannot.鈥�
Browder uses her art and activism to draw attention to the poor and enslaved women whom James Marion Sims, the self-appointed and celebrated father of modern gynecology, experimented on to develop his surgical techniques.
Browder decided to change the narrative and developed a to revive the stories of the women upon whom Sims experimented through highly publicized artwork. Most recently, Browder Sims's old hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, to create a training facility for Black midwives and to continue her educational mission to center Black people's ongoing struggles to access safe medical care that their bodies and labor helped pioneer. 聽
Browder鈥檚 work has been shown nationally and featured in outlets such as the , National Public Radio, and the Washington Post.
The Margaret Morrison Distinguished Lecture in Women鈥檚 History is sponsored by the Department of History in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The lecture series is named for Margaret Morrison Carnegie, the mother of Andrew Carnegie, who founded Carnegie Mellon under the name Carnegie Institute of Technology. The institute was home to four schools, including Margaret Morrison Carnegie College, a women鈥檚 college that closed in 1973, where CMU鈥檚 History Department was originally located.