Interview with Dora Muhammad, former staff member at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP). Dora shares the powerful origin story of the PUSH Coalition, addressing its history, the challenges it has faced, key victories along the way, and the continued fight for health equity in Virginia. The interview is conducted by Kathryn Haines, VICPP’s health equity manager. August 4, 2025 

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I am Dora Muhammad, a former Virginia Interfaith Center staffer. I worked on health equity, racial equity, and congregational engagement. So, in 2019, it was a time when there was national discourse that erupted around institutional reports around the maternal mortality rates for Black women that were three times the rate of their White counterparts. And in Virginia, it was close to nearly four times.  
 
And there was a lot of discussion around that. It became a priority for then-Governor Northam’s administration. We had just established a maternal mortality review committee task force. And so, they set a schedule of listening sessions across the state.  And simultaneous with that at Virginia Interfaith Center, was we had just expanded Medicaid in 2018. And so, when I came on board in 2018, I developed a program

called Healthcare Hope. And part of that was monitoring the implementation of Medicaid expansion but also serving the needs of the communities. And so, we hosted regional clinics to help people apply for Medicaid, connect them with resources.  

And so, through that process, what I found as a second-generation immigrant, it was very disheartening for me because most of the women that were not eligible when they would come to apply at our events, were immigrant women from Africa or the Caribbean or Latin America. And what was even more disheartening was that there were no resources for me to refer them to. In Northern Virginia, there was only one clinic in Arlington. And so if you didn’t live near that one clinic that provided pro-rated care for pregnant undocumented women. There were no resources in Virginia. So that was already I had me looking into how can I help these women. And so, I was already looking at legislation on how to do that.  

And so, I lived in Prince William County at the time, and I helped coordinate and organize the listening session for the governor’s office in Prince William County. And at the end of that panel discussion, I was part of the panel, right before the governor’s office closed. At the time, delegate Elizabeth Guzman, who herself is an immigrant to this country, she interrupted the closing remarks and said, “We’re not going to solve this completely unless we address our undocumented women, pregnant women. How can we give them the care that they need for their pregnancies?” And so, I turned to her and I said, “I have a way.”  

And so, at the end of the panel, literally we sat down, everyone was milling around, and I shared with her the bill that I looked at the legislation. And she said, “Let’s do it.” And so, it was me and Elizabeth Guzman that began honestly was the root of PUSH (the PUSH Coalition). And so, and the reason I say that is because Virginia Interfaith Center, were part of the HAV Coalition, which is the existing Healthcare for all Virginians Coalition. And I was the new kid on the block, right? I had just gotten here and was new to this position. And so, the policy, the protocol for the half coalition, they would vote as a collective on what their priorities would be for the next legislative session. And so, I submitted the prenatal care bill, and it wasn’t included. It wasn’t a priority.  

And I was grateful, quite frankly, that our executive director at the time, Kim Bobo said, “But do you want to do this?” She asked me, “Do you want to do this? Do you see a way that it can be done?” And so, I showed her the other states that had done it. And so, she gave me the green light to even though I didn’t have  The HAV Coalition, it wasn’t going to be part of our official health agenda through the HAV Coalition. I set about with myself and Elizabeth Guzman. And the third party that helped was Jill Hankin, attorney that was part of founding the HAV Coalition that grounded all of Virginia Poverty Law Center’s health policy. She was an attorney and she guided me. She read the bill. She said she would support me and that was important because she’s a cornerstone of health equity and policy here in Virginia. And so, I had her support. I had her guidance.  

And so, for the first year, I just, it was midnight, you know, with my patron list running down the halls, but it was a commitment to the women that I saw the disappointment that they didn’t have access to care. And it was Delegate Guzman’s commitment to having this done for her constituents as well. And so that is how have the PUSH Coalition began. 

KATHRYN HAINES: What made PUSH unique? What did PUSH bring to the table that wasn’t there before?  

DORA MUHAMMAD: That is a great question. So, PUSH actually created the table. We created a table. We created a table that centered Black women, brown women Unapologetically. And I think that that space had never existed before in health equity collectively. what I saw from the women that came, the advocates who’ve been doing this work long before I joined Virginia Interfaith Center. Again, I very clearly and humbly was a new kid on the block in this work in Virginia, but there were organizations who’ve done this and maybe collaborated occasionally with other organizations and had champions for certain things. But PUSH created a space for us to consistently come together and say we are sacrificing our time, our resources, our experience for the outcomes of Black women. And this was women of all races. So that was unique for Virginia.