Decades of research show that early childhood attachment relationships strongly influence later cognitive, emotional, and social functioning. Maternal cognitive and emotional connection to the child can begin as early as 10 weeks of gestation. This connection is shaped by socio-economic status and stress. It is also influenced by the mother’s own early attachment experiences. Trauma or adversity in the mother’s history can affect bonding and caregiving. Maternal psychopathology, including conditions like depression or schizophrenia, can shape attachment development. Social support and cultural views and practices also influence how attachment forms. Secure early caregiving promotes children’s self-regulation during stress. It also reduces internalizing and externalizing behaviors later in childhood, affecting academic and social outcomes. Attachment theory has been critiqued for insufficiently accounting for historical and social contexts that shape Black families. In the U.S., Black families are disproportionately exposed to trauma compared to White families. Intergenerational trauma and adverse childhood experiences can affect brain development and strain parent-child attachment. However, the literature often overlooks strengths and resilience that are also transmitted through caregiving relationships. Black families have frequently been studied through Eurocentric, White, nuclear-family frameworks that can misinterpret culturally grounded practices as deficits, so this qualitative project centers Black birthing people’s lived experience and community knowledge to explore how structural violence, intergenerational trauma, and resilience shape caregiving, bonding, and attachment in an urban community.