Thread by @JABell27

And let's take a look, @SMH_Historians, at a little example of how this works, right from military history. Yeoman 3rd Class Inez Beatrice McIntosh (Jackson), USNR(F), was one of the 1st 14 Black women to serve officially, & openly as Black women, in the US armed forces. 1/

https://twitter.com/historianess/status/1439966189766184966

She was the youngest child of formerly enslaved parents Philip and Bettie Royster McIntosh of Okolona, Mississippi. After her wartime service in Washington, DC, she married her colleague Pocahontas Jackson's younger brother DeForest. DeForest Jackson became a dentist. 2/

Here's Inez, probably in 1918. She was about 24 years old. Isn't she cute? I can't swear that the sailor making sheep's eyes at her is DeForest Jackson, but Inez was from a very nice family & I don't think she'd let just any boy hold her hand & look at her that way. 3/

Probably b/c of the shortage of trained Black dentists in NE Mississippi, & so they could be closer to their families, the Jacksons returned to Columbus, MS & started a family. Their son DeForest Jr. was born in 1923. His younger brother Donald didn't come along until 1934, so 4/

I think it's safe to assume that Inez may have had some miscarriages or stillbirths in between the births of her two sons. In 1935, she was pregnant again. Maybe they hoped for a little girl this time. Or maybe they were scared, b/c of her age & previous difficulty. 5/

The Jacksons lived in Columbus, but in the 2nd week of September Inez had returned to Okolona. She was likely feeling poorly, & may have gone home so her elderly mother or other family members could watch her 12yo son & infant son. 6/

There was a Black physician in Okolona: Dr. Charles H. Wheeler. He'd had 3 years of college-level medical training. He came to see her on the morning of 9/11/1935. At that point, she was probably weak & in pain. 7/

B/c of segregation & Jim Crow medical practices, there was no hospital in Okolona or Tupelo that would have admitted Inez (I don't have good stats on the # of Black-operated hospitals in MS that year, but it was almost certainly < 10.) 7/

Hospitals at Black medical colleges in Memphis & Nashville were 135 & 240 miles away, respectively. In any case, it was already too late for Inez: she had begun to hemorrhage. The pain would've been excruciating. 8/

At 11:00AM that morning, her suffering ended. Dr. Wheeler pronounced her dead. The cause of death listed on her death certificate is "ectopic pregnancy"; the secondary cause, "hemorrhage." 9/

The procedure that might have saved her life was a salpingectomy, in which the fallopian tube & embryo are removed. It had been developed FIFTY YEARS EARLIER. There's no guarantee that the ectopic pregnancy would've been successfully diagnosed or treated even in a hospital 10/

a that was Black-owned, & in which Black doctors took the complaints of their patients seriously. But it is unarguable that lack of access to quality women's medical care ensured that she never had a chance. 11/

B/c Black women in NE Mississippi lacked access to diagnostic equipment & surgical facilities, an ectopic pregnancy was considered a "universally fatal accident." Her death is a reminder that then, as now, maternal mortality is higher among Black women than white. 12/

It should also be a reminder that SB 8 may lead to a similar result for some military women & family members now serving in TX: ectopic pregnancy, an extremely painful medical condition that can now be effectively diagnosed, but which inevitably leads to death of the fetus, 13/

is treated by a procedure even now considered by some bass-ackward, ignorant politicians to be an "abortion." 14/

Was YN 3/C Inez Jackson's painful death really inevitable? If African Americans in MS hadn't been effectively disfranchised, could their votes have meant more equal access to medical care? 15/

Had she lived to be elderly, what stories might she have passed down about her military service & that of her sisters in the "Golden Fourteen?" And never mind the history: How was her situation EVER considered acceptable treatment of a veteran of the US Navy? 16/

What about her family, left behind to mourn? Women's access to quality reproductive health care matters. Voting rights matter. They matter for veterans, and for people who've never served. 17/

Women's access to reproductive health care is political. Voting rights are political. What SMH does in TX, & what SMH says about what's happening there, matter. Do better. Do it to honor the memory of YN 3/C Inez Bernice McIntosh Jackson, USNR(F), 1898-1935. 18/end

*Bernice*, stupid autocorrect!

@threadreaderapp unroll pls