Loretta Ross - Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique

Table of Contents

As the editors of this anthology, it would be impossible to list all of the people who helped bring this dream to fruition. Nor can we list them in order of importance, but our sincere thanks go to each of them. Wed particularly like to thank Pamela Bridgewater Toure, Aaronette White, and Mary Krane Derr, who trusted us with their submissions but passed away before they could see their work in print. Thanks also to Gabriela Moreno for her assistance reviewing the poetry section. We are particularly grateful to the SisterSong family, current and past members of the Board of Directors, and particularly SisterSong founder Luz Marina Rodriguez-Cintron, for allowing us to assemble this offering of love. Thanks are also offered to the authors included in this book.

Loretta J. Ross would like to thank the following: Blue Mountain CenterHarriet Barlow and Ben StraderDarcy Buerkle, Sonja Dolinsek, Joyce Follet, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Elizabeth Hackett, Kia Hall, Lokeilani Kaimana, Carrie Lee Lancaster, Lara Matta, Anne McClintock, Rob Nixon, Karen Pittelman, Grace Ramsey, Sherrill Redmon, Stephanie Rosen, Nayiree Roubinian, Jeanine Ruhsam, Barbara Smith, Kerry Spitzer, Gloria Steinem, Banu Subramaniam, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, and Isa Williams.

Lynn Roberts thanks Dulari Gandhi for volunteering her time to get the editors organized in the beginning with invaluable clerical support, and Kweku Toure and Lisa Diane White for their gracious support and permission to include their beloved wife and sister in this volume. She is especially grateful for the life and forbearance of her ancestors, the grace and wisdom of her mother, Constance Lovell Gates, the constant friendship of her sister Pamela Baker, and all the joy and hope derived from her children Keely, Thaddeus, Lane, and Cameron, and grandchildren Isaiah, Jonah, Jada, and Naiella.

Erika Derkas would like to thank Kristie Ross for her unyielding support, belief, and friendship: Her overall spirit continues to inspire and guide and for this I am eternally grateful. Special thanks to Mia Ramirez for her clerical support and eye for detail.

Whitney Peoples would like to thank Erika Derkas, Lynn Roberts, Loretta J. Ross, and SisterSong for bringing her into the important and affirming work of this anthology. She is also grateful for Dr. Moya Baileys role in bringing her to this project. She extends special thanks to the students in her Fall 2016 reproductive justice seminar for their enthusiasm and excitement for this book and for wholly embracing the invitation to become reproductive justice scholars and advocates in their own right.

THE CRUNK FEMINIST COLLECTION

Edited by Brittney C. Cooper, Susana M. Morris, and Robin M. Boylorn

For the Crunk Feminist Collective, their academic day jobs were lacking in conversations they actually wanted to haverelevant, real conversations about how race and gender politics intersect with pop culture and current events. To address this void, they started a blog. Now with an annual readership of nearly one million, their posts foster dialogue about activist methods, intersectionality, and sisterhood. And the writers personal identitiesas black women; as sisters, daughters, and lovers; and as television watchers, sports fans, and music loversare never far from the discussion at hand.

These essays explore Sex and Power in the Black Church, discuss how Clair Huxtable Is Dead, list Five Ways Talib Kweli Can Become a Better Ally to Women in Hip Hop, and dwell on Dating with a Doctorate (She Got a Big Ego?). Self-described as critical homegirls, the authors tackle life stuck between loving hip hop and ratchet culture while hating patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism.

ROBIN M. BOYLORN is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication at The University of Alabama. She received her Ph.D. from University of South Florida in 2009. She is the author of the award-winning monograph Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience (Peter Lang 2013), and co-editor of Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life (Left Coast Press 2014).

BRITTNEY C. COOPER is Assistant Professor of Womens and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. Her book Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition (University of Illinois Press) examines the long history of Black womens thought leadership in the US, with a view toward reinvigorating contemporary scholarly and popular conversations about Black feminism. In addition to a weekly column on race and gender politics at Salon.com, her work and words have appeared at the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cosmo.com, TV Guide, the Los Angeles Times, Ebony.com, The Root.com, MSNBCs Melissa Harris-Perry Show, All In With Chris Hayes, Disrupt with Karen Finney, and Third Rail on Al-Jazeera America, among many others. She is also a co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a popular feminist blog. In 2013 and 2014, she was named to the Root.coms Root 100, an annual list of Top Black Influencers.

SUSANA M. MORRIS is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective and a contributing writer on the blog. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University and is currently Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her book, Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Womens Literature, was published by the University of Virginia Press in February 2014.

BUT SOME OF US ARE BRAVE

Edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith

Originally published in 1982, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Womens Studies is the first comprehensive collection of black feminist scholarship. Featuring essays by Alice Walker, the Combahee River Collective, and Barbara Smith, and original resources, this book is vital to todays conversation on race and gender in America.

AKASHA (GLORIA T.) HULL is a writer, lecturer, and professor.

PATRICIA BELL SCOTT is an author and a former womens studies professor.

Freelance writer, lecturer, and activist, BARBARA SMITH was the founder of Kitchen Table Press and the author of several books including Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, and The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom.

STILL BRAVE

Edited by Stanlie M. James, Frances Smith Foster, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Cheryl Clarke, Angela Davis, bell hooks, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walkerfrom the pioneers of black womens studies comes Still Brave: The Evolution of Black Womens Studies, the definitive collection of race and gender writings today. Including Alice Walkers ground-breaking elucidation of the term womanist, discussions of womens rights as human rights, and a piece on the Obama factor, the collection speaks to the ways that feminism has evolved and how black women have confronted racism within it.

FRANCES SMITH FOSTER is Professor of English and womens studies, the former director of the Emory Institute for Womens Studies, and current chair of the English department. Foster has held a Fulbright and a fellowship from the W. E. B. DuBois Institute at Harvard. She has authored or edited fourteen books and numerous articles.

BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL is President of the National Womens Studies Association, the founding Director of the Womens Research and Resource Center, and Professor of Womens Studies at Spelman College. She has been involved with the national womens studies movement since its inception and provided leadership for the establishment of the first womens studies major at a historically Black college.