This thesis articulates motherhood as both a liberal and black humanist formation that conditions black women to mother and attempts to untether maternity from the black female body. By centering maternal ambivalence—the desire and distaste for motherhood—in selected works by black women, this thesis argues that black motherhood is an ambivalent site for some black women. Motherhood can be a site of joy and displeasure; sacrifice and refusal; life and death.