On November 28, a fund for Black mothers will hold its first public event on the street it is raising money for, a mile through Houston’s Third Ward. Tina Knowles, who raised her daughters there and ran the Headliners hair salon in the neighborhood, is a team captain. So is Kelly Rowland.
The race is the first staged by birthFUND, the maternal health fund Elaine Welteroth founded. Rowland has backed it since early on.
“Third Ward helped me raise my girls,” Knowles said. She described going back as “watering the roots that made us who we are.”
The race starts at 8 a.m. The birthFUND community walk follows at 9:30 a.m. along Emancipation Avenue. The morning ends with a celebration at Emancipation Park.
“Every mother deserves to feel safe, supported, and seen when she brings life into the world,” Rowland said.
Nobody is being asked to buy a table. The ask is a mile on foot at eight in the morning, in the neighborhood both captains came up in, for the mothers living there now.
