Black Technical and Professional Communication is defined as ”practices that are centered around Black community, culture, and rhetorical practices that are inherent in the Black lived experience. Black TPC is reflective of the cultural, economic, social, and political experiences of Black people across the Diaspora” (Black TPC Taskforce). This special issue emphasizes the importance of valuing Black TPC as fundamental to developing a comprehensive understanding of the technical and professional communication.

Black mother activists play a pivotal role in redressing community inequities. To address the work of these activists, I turn to technical and professional communication and reproductive justice to explore how ethos is central to their work.

On December 15, 2019, I sent this article to the editors. On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery was followed and murdered as he jogged in Brunswick, GA by two white men who believed him to be a robbery suspect. On March 13, 2020 former EMT Breonna Taylor was shot at least eight times when Louisville Metro Police executed a no-knock warrant.

Reproductive justice is an all-encompassing theoretical approach for solving community needs associated with the right to have children, the right to health care, and the right to safe environments for children and families. My work as an RJ activist addresses the need for safe environments that are free of gun violence, police brutality, and access to support systems that nurture Black mothers with pre-and post-natal care. As such, my tool kit is for scholars whose primary focus is on using rhetoric to effect change in the school system as well as in maternal health.