During March, Women's History Month, Joy of Resistance will be presenting important women's histories that are not well enough known. These will include: The FBI assaults on the Feminist Movement; Black Women Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and the political meaning of "fashions" in Women's Underwear.
On this 3rd day of Women's History Month--and the 1st show of Joy of Resistance in its new time slot--we will focus on the Reproductive Justice Movement. Our guest will be one of its most important originators, Loretta Ross.
ABOUT LORETTA ROSS
Loretta J. Ross is an activist, professor and public intellectual and thought initiator of great accomplishment. She is a founder of SisterSong: A Woman of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a developer of the term and concept: Reproductive Justice. She joined the woman's movement in 1978 by working at the first rape crisis center in the country and learned about women's human rights, reproductive justice, white supremacy, and women of color organizing. She also researched and fought hate groups such as the KKK in the 1990s, and founded a national center for teaching people about their human rights.
She also has appeared on CNN, BET, "Good Morning America," "The Donahue Show," the National Geographic Channel, PBS; she's had articles in The New York Times, Huffington Post, CBS Sunday Morning, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and Oprah Winfrey Radio, rewire.news and--we're proud to say, Joy of Resistance, where she introduced Reproductive Justice to the WBAI audience in 2003.
ABOUT 'REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE'
Reproductive Justice is a term that was NOT around in the first stages of the abortion rights movement (dating roughly from the late 1960's to the early late 90's). It appeared on the scene and gradually began to gain traction and become used as often as the earlier term, Reproductive Rights, some time in the 1990's. It represented a shift in in reproductive rights language and conceptualization more closely aligned with the lives of Women of Color. The group that first developed it--Loretta Ross says it was about 12 women-- would go on later to found SisterSong: A Woman of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
Broadly speaking, Reproductive Justice is the right to have children, not to have children, and to parent children in healthy and safe environments. The last phrase is key, because it directly includes ALL of the circumstances of a woman's life that go into her decision to have or not have a child or children. Thereby, it incorporates such issues as poverty, police brutality, housing and employment options, violence from partners and more.
We will be talking to Loretta Ross about how the concept of Reproductive Justice was developed among its originators and the experiences coming out of their lives and communities that led them to this reframing of the reproductive rights movement. Ms. Ross has also been active in anti-Klan work, anti-rape work and work about how to build movements and involve younger generations in them. We'll also speak about the current crises in the U.S. regarding reproductive justice and the rise of the far Right.
Our program will include the feminist news roundup and topical music.
MORE ABOUT LORETTA J. ROSS
Ross, in her own words:
I joined the women's movement in 1978 by working at the first rape crisis center in the country and learned about women's human rights, reproductive justice, white supremacy, and women of color organizing. I also researched and fought hate groups such as the KKK in the 1990s, and I founded a national center for teaching people about their human rights, and co-founded SisterSong. I want to share what I've experienced with emerging activists in hopes that you will join the transformative human rights movement that has changed the world.
Loretta J. Ross is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education, the USA Partner of the Peoples' Decade of Human Rights Education. CHRE is a training and resource center for grassroots activists and is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to founding the Center in 1996, Ms. Ross was the national Program Research Director from 1991-1995 for the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly the National Anti-Klan Network). CDR is a national, non-profit clearinghouse for information on hate groups and bigoted violence including the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi movement. Ms. Ross managed the research and program departments and directed specific projects on (1) human rights education in the U.S.; (2) right wing organizations in South Africa and (3) Klan and neo-Nazi involvement in anti-abortion violence. She produced CDR's quarterly newsletter, The Monitor, and the monthly intelligence report on far right activities, The Activist Update. She recently attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995 and the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt in 1994.
Prior to joining the CDR staff, Ms. Ross was Program Director for the National Black Women's Health Project, and Director of Women of Color programs for the National Organization for Women (NOW). As one of the first African American women to direct a rape crisis center in the 1970s, she organized the first national conference on Violence and Third World Women in 1980, and in 1987 she organized a second "first", a national conference on Women of Color and Reproductive Rights.
As a reproductive rights activist, Ms. Ross was one of the first black women to win a suit in 1976 against A.H. Robins, manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield which sterilized her at age 23. She organized women of color delegations for the massive pro-choice marches sponsored by NOW in 1986 and 1989. Also in 1989, she co-coordinated production of a popular brochure for African American women called "We Remember," of which 250,000 copies were successfully distributed. In 1990, she coordinated the first national conference of African American women for reproductive rights for the National Black Women's Health Project. She is currently authoring a book on black women's activism in the reproductive rights movement called Black Abortion.
She has testified before the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the Food and Drug Administration on women's health and civil rights issues. She served eight years on the D.C. Commission for Women, and has appeared on national talk shows such as The Donahue Show, The Charlie Rose Show, and Good Morning America. Ms. Ross is also an editorial writer with the Progressive Media Project for the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain on political affairs and a political analyst for Pacifica News Service.