WOMEN OF ACHIEVEMENT
2025
VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:
Dr. Nikia Grayson
When Nikia Grayson graduated from Howard University, she was on the road to a sports-related career.
But a three-week backpacking trip through Senegal and Gambia changed all that. Seeing families devastated by HIV and polio, the results of a global crisis in healthcare, Nikia knew she had to do something.
She returned to school. She obtained master’s degrees in public health and medical anthropology.
Raised in the Washington, DC area, in 2003 Nikia moved to Memphis with her husband. Conducting research in Memphis for the March of Dimes made her aware of this country’s appallingly high rate of maternal mortality. Rates in Memphis were near the highest in the nation. Black and Brown women’s risk of dying was 2-3 times higher than that of white women. She had to do something.
She returned to school, this time to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She wanted to work in direct patient care. For three years, she spent days at school. Nights she worked in labor and delivery at Regional One, where 25% of births are high risk. She learned a lot and formed lasting connections.
Nikia learned that outcomes improve with midwife-assisted births. With no training available here, she sought certification through a distance program in Kentucky.
She had become a Masters Registered Nurse, obtained a doctorate as a Family Nurse Practitioner and was completing her midwifery certification when she met Rebecca Terrell, 2017 Woman of Achievement for Heroism and then-executive director of non-profit abortion clinic CHOICES. Rebecca’s dream was for a full-spectrum comprehensive reproductive health clinic that combined fertility, hormone therapy, birthing services, abortion and well-person healthcare. The vision was compelling but Nikia’s first thought was “In Memphis? Whoa!”
She’d grown up in an environment where women’s rights, reproductive health and sex education were the norm. She hadn’t found that to be true here.
But Nikia accepted the challenge and joined CHOICES in 2017, one of only two Black midwives in the city.
Nikia’s plan was to restore Black midwifery to its historical role and give Black and Brown women a safe, joyful birth experience. For centuries, midwives were respected healers who cared for the entire community, but in the early 1900s, MD’s, who were predominantly white and male, became interested in pregnancy and birth. They launched campaigns against midwifery, promoting Western science and pain relief through drugs. The population of Black “granny midwives” in the South was decimated.
In 2010, CHOICES began accepting Medicare. Their services became accessible to traditionally-marginalized communities and the response was explosive. Midwifery practice at CHOICES began in 2017. In 2020, CHOICES completed construction of a new facility and for the first time, Memphis had a birth center. Three birthing suites each offer a shower and tub. There’s a serene labor garden to walk in and a welcoming lounge for family members.
Midwives make home visits, give excellent follow-up care and see outcomes that are far above the national average. The key, says Nikia, is to establish trust by having a provider who looks and sounds like you.
Nikia and CHOICES colleagues established a fellowship program that emphasizes reproductive and social justice. Even in politically conservative Tennessee, Nikia successfully recruits from all over the country. Nikia has increased the number of Black midwives in Memphis to eight, six of whom work for CHOICES. Two of these were certified through the fellowship program.
As Director of Clinical Services, Dr. Nikia Grayson oversees all medical services and ensures that CHOICES provides patient-centered medical care.
Midwife, womanist, feminist, a workaholic, a thinker, wife, mom, an activist, a rebel, a child of God. These are words Nikia Grayson uses to describe herself.
Women of Achievement would add visionary for her tremendous and ongoing achievements for women. And for that we salute her.