Wellness was never invented.
It was carried.
Through kitchens and gardens.
Through sickrooms and long roads toward safety.
Through hands that offered comfort when systems did not.
The practices we now call ritual — rest, breath, nourishment, tending to the nervous system — were once acts of protection and devotion. Many were kept alive by women who healed quietly, creating space for others to live, grow, and belong.
This Black History Month, we pause to honor them.
- Rebecca Lee Crumpler, bringing medicine where care had been withheld. In 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first Black woman physician in the United States. She practiced after the Civil War, caring for newly freed people who had little to no access to healthcare.
- Mary Eliza Mahoney, teaching that dignity is part of treatment. Mary Eliza Mahoney was one of the first professionally trained Black nurses in the U.S. at a time when both her profession and identity were restricted by barriers.
- Adah Belle Samuels Thoms, widening the reach of healing. Nurse, teacher, and organizer, Adah Belle Samuels Thoms worked to integrate hospitals and expand opportunities for Black nurses across the country.
- Mamie Phipps Clark, revealing that to be seen is foundational to wellbeing. Psychologist Mamie Phipps Clark studied how environment shapes identity and self-worth. Her research demonstrated that exclusion and representation deeply affect mental health — especially in children.
- Inez Beverly Prosser, showing safety allows the self to open. One of the first Black women school psychologists, Inez Beverly Prosser researched how educational environments affected students’ emotional development.
- Harriet Tubman, carrying plant medicine beside freedom. Known widely as a freedom leader, Harriet Tubman was also a nurse and herbalist. She used plant medicine to treat illness, soothe pain, and help people survive the dangerous journey to liberation.
- Queen Afua, reminding the body how to restore itself. Holistic health educator Queen Afua helped bring plant-based nutrition, detoxification practices, and womb wellness into community spaces decades before mainstream wellness embraced them.
Their work lives inside many modern rituals — even when unnamed.
To honor this lineage is not to retell it as trend,
but to practice care with awareness of where it came from.
Not a spotlight.
A remembering.
