Post by: TEAM UMAG

Black August Freedom Rides

In 1973, lawmakers decided that states shouldn’t be the sole decision-makers regarding a person’s right to choose. Forty-nine years later, the Supreme Court overturned that decision. In response to this, organizations collaborate to ensure that disparities and racialized injustices aren’t being ignored.

At Urban Matrix, we have been fortunate to find ourselves at the forefront of these happenings. Because we’re passionate about helping nonprofits become more visible in the digital landscape, we get invited to support the causes we truly believe in. One of our most recent projects was for Lift Louisiana, a nonprofit organization that believes in elevating and amplifying the voices of people, community leaders, and experts to change the policies behind poor health outcomes for women in Louisiana.

Playlist of Outtakes and Blockquotes for the Black August Freedom Rides

Lakeesha Harris, Director at Chicago Volunteer Doulas, organized this journey when she acted as Co-Executive Director at Lift Louisiana. The event’s purpose was to showcase the journey people will need to take from the southern to the northern United States to access alternative medical options that are no longer legal in many southern states.

Current Director of Lift Louisiana, Michelle Erenberg, said, “Lift Louisiana is already seeing how the abortion bans are making it even more difficult for teens to access the procedure because they can’t easily travel across state lines without parental support. We’re going to see a massive increase in birth rates with people under 18 in Louisiana and probably in all the surrounding states.”

While the group visited Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot created an executive order which protects travelers coming into Chicago to seek abortion services and other forms of healthcare that are no longer available in their hometowns.

Black August Freedom Rides About

The official “About” for Black August Freedom Rides details the reasons these groups met and showcases their hoped outcomes.

We, the Reproductive Justice Leaders and coalition partners in the Black August Freedom Rides, recognize that with the demise of Roe v. Wade, and as more Black people have even less access to abortion care – and thereby healthcare – our people living in the deep South will have to risk their health and wellbeing, migrating for reproductive health care and survival. While we deserve abortion access where we live, labor, and pay taxes – we now demand a safe and uninhibited journey for our people seeking care in the northern states.

Trans people, specifically trans youth, also require safe travel without impediments. They will navigate the highways, byways, railways, and airways in order to receive gender-affirming healthcare that is deserved, desperately needed, and limited because of the hostile environment produced by conservative lawmakers’ racist and sexist legislative agendas. This is an intersectional movement for liberation and policy change because nothing less will get us free!

A multitude of organizations came together to contribute to the effort. Groups like:

We are in a healthcare and human rights crisis in the South and across this nation! Black birthing people have been dying disproportionately for years, and now they have no other choice but forced pregnancy or migration.
To represent the journey pregnant people will be forced to make because abortion has been outlawed in many southern states, state reproductive healthcare advocates and leaders will travel by train to Chicago. These leaders are from the Southern states–Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Tennessee–most impacted by the overturning of Roe.
We want it known that we are crying out for removing the patriarchy’s foot from our neck via our federal government actually signing meaningful protections instead of vague and spineless adjustments to policy, which does nothing.
To bring awareness to the Federal Commerce Clause, which allows people to legally travel for goods, services, and care – including abortions and trans healthcare. This federal law has been a line of contention in talks in Missouri and other places, and we want it protected at all costs. Anything less would be a reinstitution of slavery in the South.
We are connecting these current struggles to the continued fight for Black Liberation, ending mass incarceration, and promoting civil rights. We will discuss this in the context of building a petition to the United Nations on Human Rights Violations.

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