Having just anchored the United States to a blistering victory over Jamaica in the 4×100 metres relay at the 2016 Olympic Games, Tori Bowie high-stepped around the track, punching the air and screaming with delight before being reunited with her team-mates. An abiding image of that August evening shows her grinning effervescently alongside Tianna Bartoletta, Allyson Felix and English Gardner, the quartet draped in Old Glory. Bowie was days away from her 26th birthday, a portrait of power and poise, leaving Rio with silver (100m), bronze (200m) and, finally, gold. Twelve months later, she won the 100m at the world Championships and could call herself the fastest woman on earth.
On May 2nd Bowie was found dead in her home in Orange County, Florida. She was eight months pregnant, and the autopsy reported she had suffered complications from childbirth including respiratory distress and eclampsia (seizures caused by high blood pressure). After the news broke, Felix wrote a poignant essay for Time magazine, equal parts tribute to her former colleague, personal revelation about how close she herself had come to dying from pre-eclampsia while giving birth at 32 weeks in November 2018, and call-to-arms on behalf of African American mothers. A protest song she has been singing for quite some time.
“We need to provide women of colour with more support during their pregnancies,” said Felix, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing in Washington a full four years before Bowie’s death. “Research shows that racial bias in our maternal healthcare system includes things like providers spending less time with Black mothers, underestimating the pain of their Black patients, ignoring symptoms and dismissing complaints. There were others like me, just like me. Black like me, healthy like me, doing their best – just like me. They faced death like me too.”
Felix’s claims are bolstered by the experience of another team-mate from Brazil. Tianna Madison…
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