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Fall 2006
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Against the Poor
Fall
2006
Why
I Risked Prison
for the
Birthing Project
Katharine Hall with a photo of the first US graduating class from Cuba's Medical School |
I want to explain why I am risking prison and huge legal fines by our government. I joined Pastors for Peace in challenging the Blockade our country has imposed on the island of Cuba. We took much-needed medicine and supplies. And we raised awareness of US policies regarding Cuba in an effort to encourage more Americans to educate themselves and to get involved in our democratic process.
Many know me as a public health administrator who has dedicated most of my adult life to helping to reduce the disparity in birth outcomes between African American and other babies. I have had a long career in California State government as a health administrator, and I am the founder of The Birthing Project, which is headquartered in Sacramento.
The Birthing Project is the only national African American community-based maternal and child health organization in the US. The project is housed around the country in health departments, churches and homes. It has existed in over 75 communities and has earned national and local recognition, including the National healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies and the CA State Department of Health Excellence Awards. I am the recipient of the National Essence Award for Community Service, the US Public Health Service Women’s Health Leadership Award and recipient of the California State Legislature’s Woman of the Year.
During the last four years I have been conducting research in Cuba to determine why their Infant Mortality Rate is lower than that of the US. Ours is the highest in the developed world. I am learning a lot about maternal and child health. And I am truly understanding the impact the Blockade has not only on the babies and their families in Cuba but on our babies here in the United States.
The state of California has passed a resolution condemning the Blockade because of the adverse impact it has on California. The Blockade harms our economy and our ability to obtain much-needed pharmaceutical products that are only produced in Cuba. Americans who have travelled to Cuba have been amazed to find out how much this tiny island has to share with us. I refer to education and health research and practical applications of the systems they have developed.
When I witnessed their approach to maternal and child health, I wept. We have not been able to share this information with each other. As a result our country buried more babies before their first birthdays between 1900 and 2000 than all the soldiers we buried in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
I also wept when I saw children who looked just like my grandchildren, women who looked just like my daughters, and old people who looked like my parents suffer because they are denied medicine and medical supplies. And these supplies are readily available in our country.
The irony is that, in spite of our cruel attempt to deny them the necessities of life, Cuba has a higher literacy rate, more doctors, less homelessness, les violence and less substance abuse than the United States, according to the World Bank. Due to our loss of Affirmative Action in California, it is quite possible that more California youth of color will be educated as physicians in the Cuban Medical School than in the California Medical School system. Cuba’s only stipulation for this free education is to return to the US and practice medicine in underserved communities such as Sacramento, California.
It does not make sense that we are spending millions of dollars to transition Cuba’s government…against their will…to become more like ours. We should invest the money in strengthening our own impoverished system. We must end the Blockade and begin to work in partnership with Cuba in sharing our human and financial resources.
So, as a community health administrator, a minister and a grandmother, I am compelled to do what I can to help our country be the fair and compassionate country that I believe represents the heart of the majority of us. I can not stay back and watch us continue to inflict such pain on other human beings in my name and destroy any hope for a peaceful future for my grandchildren.
I urge you to speak up for justice in our neighborhoods and in our world. You may track the Caravan as it travels across the country picking up medicine and supplies, crosses into Mexico and on to Cuba at www.ifconews.org. Please call your congressional representatives and ask them to end the travel restrictions. Then, you can go and see Cuba for yourself.
Kathryn Hall
featherdance@earthlink.net