Editor’s note: Jitoria Hunter, chief of staff at Converge, Mississippi’s Title X family planning grantee, reflects on the recent opening of an in-person reproductive health clinic at the Jackson Medical Mall. The article is part of Mississippi Today Ideas’ ongoing effort to publish thoughtful guest essays.

I grew up in Greenville, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, where family and community are everything.

Access to care was often determined by distance and circumstance. I watched some of my neighbors, friends and family go without the health services they needed because they could not afford them or because those services were never close enough to reach.

I saw how that lack of access held people back from living fully and reaching their potential. Those early experiences are why

See Full Page