SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective records

The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective is a network of local, regional and national grassroots agencies working for reproductive justice for five primary ethnic populations/indigenous nations in the United States: African American, Arab American/Middle Eastern, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latina, and Native American/Indigenous.

The organization emerged from a series of symposia in New York City and Savannah in 1997-1998 convened by Reena Marcelo, then a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation’s Reproductive Health Program, and Luz Rodriguez, then Executive Director of Latina Roundtable on Health and Reproductive Rights. The purpose of these gatherings was to bring together women of color reproductive health educators, activists, and policymakers to identify the key challenges grassroots organizations were experiencing in reproductive health work. Attendees decided to use the opportunity of these meetings to form a national collective of independent organizations that would help them all to achieve greater impact, and SisterSong was born with Luz Rodriguez as its first leader. The project was initially funded by the Ford Foundation and its mission was to educate women of color and policy makers on reproductive and sexual health and rights, and to work towards the access of health services, information and resources that are culturally and linguistically appropriate.

In its early history, SisterSong expanded to include other organizations led by women of color and to include individual women of color members. Organizational members focused on issues including HIV/AIDS services, midwifery, support for incarcerated women, health screenings, advocacy for abortion and contraception, research, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol treatment, and treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. After several years of work to develop the collective, SisterSong hosted its first national conference in November 2003 at Spelman College in Atlanta with over 600 women of color in attendance.

SisterSong was a volunteer-run network until 2005, when they opened a national office in Atlanta and hired their first staff with funding from the Ford Foundation and the Moriah Fund. The first staff leader was Loretta Ross, who served as National Coordinator from 2005 to 2012. Instead of a board of directors, SisterSong was led by a Management Circle of leaders from each ethnic community in the Collective: Indigenous, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, and Latinx. In 2006 SisterSong incorporated as a 501c3 nonprofit. In 2007 the collective officially changed its name to SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and purchased The Motherhouse in Atlanta, the historic first home of the National Black Women’s Health Project, which remains the organization’s headquarters today. SisterSong is strategically sited in the Deep South because they feel that this is where the rights of women of color are most threatened.

In 2012, National Coordinator Loretta Ross decided to return to her roots as a scholar and thought leader working within academia. With Ross’s exit, SisterSong shifted from the Management Circle model to a conventional Board of Directors model and named Monica Raye Simpson, then the organization’s Development Director, as Interim Executive Director in 2012 and Executive Director in 2013.

In 2014, SisterSong selected four strategic priority areas: reproductive justice training; centering black women’s leadership and issues; building Southern synergy; and using arts and culture to reach new audiences and eradicate bigotry.

In 2016, SisterSong opened a second office in North Carolina focused on building a state-based reproductive justice movement there.