Mother’s Day is celebrated across the country every year on the second Sunday in May, but this holiday has special importance to the African American family.  In our community, the social, political, and economic struggles of the Black family meant that African American women had to play roles within the home and society that often challenged patriarchal ideas. They were the nurturers who provided care that ranged from cooking to cleaning, helping to establish family rules and serving as disciplinarians, to providing moral and spiritual training for the children in the family. As mothers made these contributions, they also had to make others, including working away from their homes in the kitchens, fields, factories, and stores of whites so they could help contribute economically to the family. 

It has been a popular position of some scholars and critics to present African American women as matriarchs, mothers who presumably wanted to control and dominate their households. This is not only a myth but a fabrication that grew out of circumstances largely created by white dominance and institutionalized systemic poverty that forced African American women to be mothers, breadwinners, providers, and protesters.

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“My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.”

First Lady Michelle Obama