"In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the black body exposed America's systemic abuse of Black women's bodies. From slave masters' economic stake in bonded women's fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the devaluation of Black motherhood--and the neglect of Black women's reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas. Now, some two decades later, Killing the Black body remains as crucial as ever--a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women"--Page 4 of cover.

"Frequently when women's issues are discussed researched and/or analyzed they do not always take into account additional and separate issues that may be faced by women of color. When it was learned that then-ABA president Hilarie Bass would have as one of her primary initiatives a study and research based on the long-term careers of women in law it occurred to us that the experiences of women of color could be different. After all we could within minutes identify approximately 90 percent of the women of color practicing in firms more than 30 years. This is not a good thing."