Midwife Margaret Charles Smith
With DEI and Black history education under attack, it’s important now more than ever to honor, celebrate, and share stories of Black history. This week, we’re highlighting the amazing Midwife Margaret Charles Smith.
Margaret Charles Smith was born in 1906 in rural Alabama. Smith’s mom died about three weeks after giving birth to her, she was primarily raised by her grandmother, who was a former slave and midwife.
Margaret delivered her first baby at the age of 5, when she attended a relative’s birth, catching the infant before the midwife could arrive. As a teenager, she became interested in midwifery, but didn’t start training until she was in her thirties. She received her permit from Greene County, Alabama, making her one of the first official midwives in the county.
Over the course of her 35-year-long career, “Miss Margaret,” as she was called, delivered over 3,000 babies. She delivered twins, premature babies, babies in the breach position, and other high-risk births. Amazingly, across her entire career, she didn’t lose a single mother and lost very few infants during childbirth.
Miss Margaret has been honored by the National Black Women’s Health Project, the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Alabama Hall of Fame, among other awards. In 1996, Miss Margaret co-wrote an award-winning book titled, Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife. She passed away in 2004, at the age of 98.
