08/31/2026
Black Breastfeeding Week is about more than breastfeeding. It is about history, justice, and reclaiming a choice that has not always been freely given.
In 1946, Annie Mae Fultz gave birth to four identical Black daughters in Reidsville, North Carolina. The Fultz quadruplets quickly became national celebrities. But their story also became part of a much darker chapter in the history of infant feeding.
The girls’ physician negotiated with Pet Milk, which used the Fultz quads in advertising specifically aimed at Black families. The campaign helped introduce formula marketing to a Black consumer market that companies had largely overlooked. The girls were portrayed as proof that formula could produce healthy, thriving babies, while breastfeeding Black mothers were increasingly absent from the images shaping American motherhood.
This was not simply a marketing campaign. It was part of a larger system that shaped what Black mothers were told about feeding their babies, and whose voices they were encouraged to trust.
Today, Black mothers continue to face the lowest breastfeeding rates among racial groups in the United States. That disparity cannot be explained by individual choice alone. History, aggressive and targeted formula marketing, workplace barriers, unequal access to lactation support, healthcare inequities, and the long-lasting legacy of racism all play a role.
That is why Black Breastfeeding Week matters.
We cannot ask Black families to overcome disparities without acknowledging the systems and history that helped create them.
Black Breastfeeding Week gives us an opportunity to listen, remember, reclaim, and most importantly, invest in making sure Black parents have the support, representation, resources, and genuine choices they deserve.
Because breastfeeding equity isn't about telling Black mothers what they should do.
It is about making sure they have the opportunity to choose and the support to succeed, if breastfeeding is their choice.
