On May 20, 2019, Mission Forward® hosted Hear Her: A Call to Action on Maternal Mortality in the United States. This powerful community conversation centered on the soaring maternal mortality rates in the United States—especially among Black women. The panels were followed by an interactive community lunch designed to bring the conversation home, in a way that provided some basic tools to lead systems change efforts in our own communities through an anti-racist framework.

Despite boasting the highest rate of spending on healthcare in the world, the United States is the single most dangerous industrialized nation in which to give birth, with American women dying from pregnancy-related complications at alarming rates. And for Black women, the data is even more disturbing. In the U.S., Black Women are 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.

See more photos from the Hear Her event.