IT'S HERE! Black Lady News Issue #2
— A WEEKLY NOTE FROM LEAH DAUGHTRY —
Black
Lady
News
What matters this week.
For the women who move the world.
Issue No. 002
Friday, May 8, 2026
A NOTE FROM LEAH
Last week, the news made this publication for me. The Court ruled, and there was nothing to do but tell you what had happened and what it meant.
This week, I get to choose. And before I tell you what I chose, I want to say something out loud, because Mother's Day weekend is here: shout out to all the mothers this weekend — the mothers by birth and the mothers by oath. The aunties. The godmothers. The play-mothers. The other-mothers. The women who became somebody's mama because somebody needed one, and stayed because love does not require paperwork. Black motherhood has never been only one thing, and it has never been only one woman's job. It is a covenant, held by many.
So this issue is for all of you.
And the choice this week was harder than it should have been. The Court that narrowed our voting power last week may decide our access to reproductive healthcare this week. And on Mother's Day weekend, that math is not abstract.
The easy version of this letter would have been a tribute. The harder version is the one I am writing — about Black women as breadwinners, about a maternal mortality rate that went up while every other group's went down, about a research agenda being defunded by people who cannot bring themselves to say the word "Black" out loud. The data will not let us soften any of it. So we will not.
We are also tracking Callais, profiling the woman who will run a 126-year-old company starting July 1, watching what happened on Monday night at the Met — and naming, in a sidebar, what just happened to Sen. Louise Lucas in Portsmouth.
Forward it to your group chat. Pull a stat for your next meeting.
Let's get into it.
THE HEADLINE
Louisiana, again: One state, two attacks, and the floor that holds Black women up
Last week's issue ended with a promise to keep tracking Callais. This week's issue begins with a different question: why is Louisiana the state that keeps showing up at the center of every fight that costs Black women something?
On Friday, May 1, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — two Trump appointees and one Bush appointee — ordered a nationwide restriction on mifepristone, the medication used in nearly two-thirds of U.S. abortions and routinely prescribed for miscarriage care. The ruling, written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, would force every patient seeking mifepristone to obtain it in person from a provider, ending the telehealth and mail-order access that has been in place since 2021. It applies in all 50 states, including states where abortion is legal.
The case is Louisiana v. FDA. It was brought in October 2025 by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill. She argued that mifepristone-by-mail undermines Louisiana's near-total state abortion ban. She did not ask the court to act only in Louisiana. She asked the court to act everywhere.
"Anti-abortion politicians have just made it much harder for people everywhere in the country to get a medication that abortion and miscarriage patients have been safely using for more than 25 years."
— Julia Kaye, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, May 1, 2026
Where it stands as we publish. On Monday, May 4, Justice Samuel Alito issued a one-page administrative stay temporarily putting the 5th Circuit's order on hold. Louisiana's response brief was due Thursday, May 7 at 5 p.m. ET. The administrative stay expires Monday, May 11 at 5 p.m. ET. The full Court is expected to act in or around that window. This issue is publishing into 72 hours of the most consequential reproductive health decision since Dobbs.
The same state. The same Court. The same week.
Eight days before the 5th Circuit ruled, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Two cases. Same state name on the docket. Same population in the line of fire.
In Callais, Louisiana asked the federal courts to lift restrictions on how it draws its congressional maps — restrictions that had protected Black voting power. The Court agreed. In Louisiana v. FDA, Louisiana asked the federal courts to lift FDA regulations that have governed mifepristone access for nearly five years — regulations that protect women's health care nationwide. The 5th Circuit agreed.
One state. Two cases. Eight days. The same legal architecture is being used to dismantle Black women's voting power and reproductive care in the same news cycle. That is not a coincidence to ignore. It is the strategy.
Why this lands hardest on Black women
More than 1 in 4 patients who have an abortion in the U.S. today do so through telemedicine. In states where in-person abortion providers are scarce or have been driven out by post-Dobbs bans — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas — telemedicine has been the workaround. A mailing ban is, functionally, a regional ban. And the region where it lands hardest is the one where Black women live, work, and try to access reproductive health care.
The math is not abstract. Black women die in childbirth at 44.8 per 100,000 live births — more than three times the rate for white women, who die at 14.2 per 100,000. Black women are also the only group whose maternal mortality rate has not shown a statistically significant decline. Mifepristone is not just an abortion drug. It is a miscarriage drug. It is a hemorrhage management drug. Restricting access does not reduce the need. It just makes the need more dangerous.
The Mother's Day frame the cards leave out
It is Mother's Day weekend. The greeting card industry would like us to soften this. The data does not allow it.
Black mothers are more than twice as likely as white mothers to be the breadwinners of their families. The Center for American Progress's most recent analysis, using 2023 Census data, finds 69% of Black mothers are the primary or sole earners for their households. Earlier analyses by CAP and the Institute for Women's Policy Research put the figure higher — between 81 and 84 percent — when "co-breadwinners" (married mothers earning at least a quarter of household income) are included. Whichever lens you use, the structural fact holds.
Black women's earnings are not supplemental.
They are the floor.
And the floor is being pulled.
The same Court that narrowed Section 2 last week is the Court that may narrow mifepristone access this week. The same federal judiciary that lets Louisiana redraw its congressional maps to dilute Black voting power is the federal judiciary that lets Louisiana write the country's reproductive health rules. The same Cabinet that proposed the Medicaid changes already moving through Congress — Medicaid that pays for roughly two out of every three Black births — is the Cabinet whose HHS Secretary defended cuts to maternal mortality research that included studies focused on Black women's deaths.
Voting power. Care power. Economic power. They have never been separate fights. They are not separate fights now.
What we do this weekend matters. Call your senators about the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Donate to the ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights, who are litigating Louisiana v. FDA. Support the organizations — SisterSong, In Our Own Voice, Planned Parenthood, the Black Women's Health Imperative — that have been doing this work for decades. And, on Sunday, hug whoever mothered you, however they came to it.
READ MORE. SCOTUSblog · NPR · ACLU case file · CAP June 2025 report.
THE PROFILE
The first in 126 years: Karen S. Carter is about to run Dow
If the Headline is what it looks like when Black women are squeezed by power, the Profile is what it looks like when Black women take it.
WHO Karen S. Carter
WHAT Incoming CEO, Dow Inc.
WHEN Effective July 1, 2026
FIRST First Black woman in Dow's 126-year history
On April 9, Dow Inc. announced that Karen S. Carter will become the company's next chief executive officer effective July 1, 2026. She will be the first Black woman to lead Dow in its 126-year history, and one of fewer than a dozen Black women to ever run a Fortune 500 company.
The announcement landed quietly — no front-page Wall Street Journal spread, no 60 Minutes profile, no Vogue feature. A 30-year company veteran taking the helm of a $40 billion industrial chemicals giant is, in some quarters, simply business news. In ours, it is a turning point that deserves to be named.
The path
Carter joined Dow as a marketing intern in 1994. She is a graduate of Howard University, with a master's degree from DePaul. Over three decades, she rotated through marketing, sales, operations, human resources, and international leadership — including running Dow's Asia Pacific business. She has led Packaging & Specialty Plastics, the company's largest segment by revenue. She has served as Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Inclusion Officer, and most recently Chief Operating Officer. She is the kind of executive who has, at one point or another, run almost every part of the company she will now lead.
This is the path that almost never produces a Black woman CEO. The data on it is brutal: of the more than 600 people who have ever held the CEO title at a Fortune 500 company, fewer than ten have been Black women. Ursula Burns (Xerox, 2009) was the first ever. Roz Brewer at Walgreens. Toni Townes-Whitley at SAIC. Thasunda Brown Duckett at TIAA. Joi Harris at DTE Energy. And now Carter.
The lineage to name
The names matter. Burns retired in 2017. Brewer departed Walgreens in 2023. Townes-Whitley left SAIC in October 2025. The cohort has rarely numbered more than two or three at a time, and it has been actively shrinking in the last 18 months — a contraction that has tracked, almost too neatly, with the federal rollback of corporate diversity programs.
Carter's arrival does not reverse that trend. She is one woman taking one job. But she is taking it at a $40 billion company in a sector — industrial chemicals — where Black women have rarely been visible at any level, much less the top. She will be running plants in Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, and Saudi Arabia. She will be testifying before Congress. She will be the face of an industry that does not yet know how to see her.
WHY THIS MATTERS FOR US — ESPECIALLY THIS WEEK
When political power is being narrowed by the courts and reproductive power is being narrowed by the same courts, corporate power matters more, not less. It is one of the few remaining venues where Black women can shape the systems that shape Black women's lives — capital allocation, supply chains, hiring, philanthropy, lobbying. Carter does not have to use that power any particular way. But she has it now. The lineage is small. The pipeline behind her is the question. And the question worth asking, in the next year, is not just what kind of CEO will Carter be? — it is who is being trained to follow her?
THE FIVE
Five things to know this week.
TRACKING CALLAIS · ONE WEEK LATER
The state-by-state damage report
Issue 001 promised to keep tracking. Here's where things stand:
Louisiana: Gov. Landry's plan to suspend the May 16 House primary was formalized. The primary is now postponed through July 15 while the legislature redraws maps targeting Reps. Troy Carter (LA-02) and Cleo Fields (LA-06).
Mississippi: Special session convenes May 20 to redraw state Supreme Court districts. The state Democratic Party estimates as many as 29 Black-majority legislative seats are at risk.
Alabama: The state attorney general filed motions on April 30 to vacate the Milligan-era injunctions that had protected the existing congressional map through 2030. LDF has signaled it will challenge.
Tennessee: Gov. Lee called a special session on May 5 (after a phone call from Trump). Republicans unveiled a 9-0 map on May 6 that splits Memphis — one of the largest majority-Black cities in the country — across three districts to eliminate Rep. Steve Cohen's seat. Floor votes Thursday. Lee is expected to sign Friday.
South Carolina: The state House voted 87-25 on May 6 to allow lawmakers to return after adjournment to redraw the congressional map. The target is Rep. Jim Clyburn's 6th District, the state's only Democratic seat. Senate vote pending.
Virginia: The state Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the substantive challenge to Sen. Louise Lucas's 10-1 amendment. Candidate filing deadline is May 26.
The work continues. So does the litigation, the organizing, and the pressure on the John Lewis Act.
THE THROUGH-LINE · BREAKING WEDNESDAY
Lucas, raided. The pattern, named.
As we were finalizing this issue, the FBI raided Sen. Louise Lucas's Portsmouth office and her cannabis dispensary next door. Fox News had a crew positioned outside before most local outlets had been notified. The DOJ called it a "corruption probe." No charges have been filed. The New York Times reports the underlying investigation was opened during the Biden administration — that is a real and complicating fact. So is this: the decision to execute a SWAT-style raid on an 82-year-old state senator with a Fox News camera ready, eight days after Callais and two weeks after Lucas's redistricting amendment passed, is a prosecutorial choice. Who decided this was the week, and why?
Lucas's case sits inside a longer pattern. Letitia James, the New York AG who prosecuted Trump, has been the target of four DOJ indictment attempts — three rejected. Fani Willis, who indicted Trump in Georgia, was disqualified, watched her case dropped, and now faces a $17 million reimbursement bill. Lisa Cook, the first Black woman on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, was the target of Trump's first-ever attempted firing of a Fed governor in the central bank's 113-year history — on mortgage allegations from before she joined the Fed. (The Supreme Court is expected to rule against the administration this summer.) LaMonica McIver, the New Jersey congresswoman conducting an oversight visit to an ICE facility, became the first sitting member of Congress to be criminally prosecuted by the Trump administration — charged with assaulting an officer who shoved her, while January 6 defendants were pardoned for the same conduct. The accusation, regardless of merit, becomes the punishment.
We are watching this. So should you.
01 A bipartisan maternal health bill, finally.
On April 27, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) introduced legislation directing federal research into the link between intimate partner violence and maternal mortality. Murkowski is the first Republican Senate co-sponsor on a bill of this kind. The legislation lands the same week HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended the administration's cuts to maternal mortality research that included studies focused specifically on Black women's deaths.
U.S. Senate · The 19th
02 The Senate landscape, beyond redistricting.
Pamela Stevenson is on the ballot in Kentucky's Democratic Senate primary May 19. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is heading toward November in Illinois with growing institutional support. Of the seven Black women who launched Senate campaigns this cycle, five are still in the running. The path to a Senate that can pass the John Lewis Act runs through these races.
The 19th · Essence
03 The convening landscape is opening up.
Black Women's Roundtable, Higher Heights for America, and Power Rising are all in their spring/summer organizing windows. With federal protections retreating, the rooms where Black women organize matter more — not less. If you are connected to any of these organizations, this is the year to renew that connection.
BWR · Higher Heights · Power Rising
04 Angela D. Aina makes the TIME 100 Health list.
The co-founder and executive director of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance was named to TIME's 2026 list of the world's most influential people in health. BMMA has been the connective tissue for Black-led maternal health organizations across the country since 2013. The recognition lands in a week when the policy landscape it works in is shifting underneath it.
TIME 100 Health
05 Black Power War Room launches.
A new national coordination hub tracking the post-Callais redistricting is live. State-by-state tracking, organizing tools and resources, and a calendar of every primary and filing deadline. Bookmark it. Share it. Use it.
THE WIN
The Met carpet, on Monday night.
Some weeks the Win is a verdict. Some weeks it is a record. This week, the Win is a carpet — and what showed up on it.
The 2026 Met Gala's theme was "Costume Art," with the dress code "Fashion Is Art," celebrating the partnership between the Costume Institute and the rest of the Metropolitan Museum's curatorial branches. The exhibition opens to the public on May 10. The co-chair table was anchored by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and Anna Wintour. A'ja Wilson, Misty Copeland, Teyana Taylor, Doja Cat, LISA, Yseult, and Zoë Kravitz served on the host committee.
For Black Lady News purposes, the night was about a few things at once.
Beyoncé's return, after a decade away
Her last Met Gala was 2016. She came back this year because she was a co-chair, and she came back wearing custom Olivier Rousteing — a look inspired by the human skeleton, paired with a feather train. She walked the carpet with Jay-Z and Blue Ivy. Blue Ivy, at 14, made her own Met debut. Look: custom Olivier Rousteing for Balmain.
Venus Williams, co-chair
The first time a Black woman co-chair has come from outside fashion or entertainment. She arrived in a Swarovski crystal mesh gown with a statement necklace inspired by the Wimbledon plate. The choice to put a tennis champion at the co-chair table this year, in this political climate, was its own kind of statement. Look: Swarovski.
The other names worth saying
SZA in Yves Saint Laurent. Tessa Thompson in Valentino, with blue-dipped fingertips matching her gown. Janelle Monáe doing what Janelle Monáe does. Lupita Nyong'o, Kerry Washington, Issa Rae. Rihanna, very late and very Maison Margiela — closing the carpet, as is tradition.
The carpet that wasn't just a carpet
The night was not without its weight. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos — honorary co-chairs after a reported $10 million donation — drew weeks of organized protest over Amazon's labor record, Amazon Web Services' contracts with ICE, and Bezos's proximity to the Trump administration. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly skipped. Zendaya, Meryl Streep, and Taraji P. Henson declined. Sánchez Bezos walked the carpet without her husband. And Chris Smalls — the Amazon Labor Union founder, fired in 2020 for organizing a pandemic-era walkout — was detained at the red carpet Monday night, holding a sign about Amazon working conditions.
The Met Gala raises money for the Costume Institute, and that is a real and worthy thing. It also, this year, served as a $10 million reputation laundry for one of the wealthiest men in the world. Both can be true.
Last year's "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" gala raised a record $31 million for the Costume Institute and made Black designers the center of fashion's biggest night. This year's broader theme could have meant Black creatives moved to the periphery. They did not. Not on the co-chair table. Not on the carpet. Not in the conversations about who actually understood the assignment. The Black women who anchored that table and the Black designers who dressed it did not pay the admission price. They earned it.
THE WATCH
What we are watching next.
Six dates worth circling. The first one is Sunday.
Sun, May 10: Mother's Day. The Black Maternal Health Caucus is expected to mark the day with policy statements. Also: Costume Art opens to the public at the Met (through January 10, 2027).
Mon, May 11, 5 p.m. ET: The Supreme Court's administrative stay on mifepristone expires. The Court will signal next steps on Louisiana v. FDA. Single most consequential moment on the calendar.
Tue, May 19: Two primaries to watch. Kentucky — Pamela Stevenson on the Democratic Senate ballot. Georgia — former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is leading the Democratic gubernatorial primary in recent polling, freshly endorsed by former President Biden in his first endorsement since leaving office. The eventual nominee will face the Republican winner in November.
Wed, May 20: Mississippi special session convenes. State Supreme Court districts and as many as 29 Black-majority legislative seats potentially on the table.
Mon, May 26: Virginia candidate filing deadline; the Virginia Supreme Court ruling on the 10-1 amendment could land any day.
Ongoing: The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the Senate. Still stalled. Still needed.
ONE THING TO READ
For your weekend.
This week's recommendation is the Center for American Progress report "Breadwinning Women Are a Lifeline for Their Families and the Economy" (June 2025), which is the source for the most current data in this issue's Headline.
I am recommending it not because it is comfortable reading — it is not — but because it puts numbers and context behind a fact that this publication will return to often: that Black women's earnings are the architecture beneath an enormous amount of American family life, and that the policy choices being made right now — on Medicaid, on tax credits, on childcare, on labor protections, on reproductive care — are choices about whether to support that architecture or to let it crumble.
The report is a useful document to have in your back pocket. Pull a stat for your next meeting. Cite it when someone tells you Black women's economic situation is improving. Forward it to anyone who still thinks Mother's Day is just about brunch.
Read at: americanprogress.org — search "breadwinning women lifeline."
A note on attribution: throughout this issue, the most current breadwinner figure (69%) comes from CAP's June 2025 analysis of 2023 Census Current Population Survey data. Earlier analyses from CAP and the Institute for Women's Policy Research, which include "co-breadwinners," put the figure between 81 and 84 percent. We cite both because both are true. The structural fact does not change.
Stay rooted.
— LD
Black Lady News is a weekly curation by Leah Daughtry.
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