MOTHERWIT: An Alabama Midwife’s Story by...

MOTHERWIT: An Alabama Midwife’s Story by Onnie Lee Logan, as told to Katherine Clark (Plume: $7.95). “Motherwit,” the story of a black “granny midwife,” straddles the line between autobiography and oral history. Born in Sweet Water, Alabama “somewhere about 1910--they didn’t keep really an accurate record for black people,” Logan recalls growing up in the old South and learning her craft from her mother: When she made midwifery her full-time occupation and received her state license in 1947, midwives still attended one-fifth of all births and one-half of all black births in Alabama. For the next 40 years, she cared for both black and white mothers and infants, losing only a single baby. Although she was well aware of the often virulent Southern racism, Logan somehow was able to ignore the prejudice that surrounded her and care for people, rather than for blacks or whites. This warmly human book draws its strength from the kindness and simple dignity of a woman who believed “We was raised to love, share and give for our family as well as anybody else. And then that’s where your progress be come in. You know when you do that God will bless you.”