TRUST BLACK WOMEN!

Who We Are

Trust Black Women (TBW) is a partnership of women from many different organizations, regions and religious backgrounds developed in 2010. We are young and older women working together. We are both pro-choice and pro-life, and are not divided over the misleading debate on abortion.

TBW works to ensure that Black women have the human right to make our own decisions about our reproductive lives, and that we should never regret difficult choices based on our complicated experiences. We don’t judge women — we leave that to our opponents. We demand that everyone trust Black women to be able to make important moral decisions for ourselves, our families and our communities. It’s a matter of Reproductive Justice.

TBW shares your values. We care about you. We represent women whose voices are not heard; whose stories are not told. We tell the truth about Black women’s lives and choices.

Our Opponents

There are those who believe they should control Black women’s reproduction like during slavery. They believe in population control and use false compassion for children to disguise a racist and sexist agenda. Our opponents are manipulative, zealous, and immoral. They lie using religion as a cover. They try to use combination of guilt and force to undermine our human rights. They manipulate our history, our concerns about medical mistreatment, and our real collective pain about genocide and slavery to spin stories about Black women being the stupid pawns of doctors. They claim that Black women can’t be trusted. They accuse us of practicing genocide on our people when we stand up for ourselves.

Our opponents are on the wrong side of the struggle for justice and human rights. While all of them may not be racist, they are at least racially-challenged. We don’t fight for conservative causes that betray the people who have sacrificed for our freedom.

We don’t need fanatics to tell us what to do. Black women make decisions every day about whether to parent or not, not just whether to give birth. Those who think they should dictate our choices won’t be there when the child is born, to help us fight for better education, increase child care, keep our kids out of jail, send our children to college, or get affordable health care. Black women fight for ourselves and we fight to uplift our people. Our opponents either stand in the way or fail to help.

We have already stopped anti-abortion legislation in 2010 targeting Black women in Georgia. We expect them to come back and try again. We’re taking our opponents on around the country wherever they appear. New billboards are in Texas, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Illinois. We will fight these fanatics who use lies and distortions who try to manipulate our community.

What is Reproductive Justice?

It means every woman has the human right to have a child, not have a child, and parent the children she has.

Trust Black Women seeks to increase respect, maintain dignity, and support Black women and girls with implementing reproductive health decisions that are personal, appropriate, accessible, and affordable. All women should be able to maintain their integrity when accessing reproductive health services. Black women should have self-determination to exercise basic human rights when implementing their decisions, and not be subjugated to the political winds, media campaigns and/or environment prevalent in government or society that hinders a woman’s ability to control her body and destiny. Trust Black Women will challenge those who seek to undermine our autonomy, respect, integrity, and dignity as Black women.

Our Strategies:

1. Bring together individual Black women to work with us to defend our human rights, dignity and honor.
2. Conduct research on the barriers to reproductive justice for Black women and girls.
3. Implement media campaigns promoting the health, well-being, and human rights of Black women and girls.
4. Advance public policies to support fair and affordable access to reproductive health services.
5. Advocate with health organizations, community-based institutions like the NAACP, people of faith leaders, and agencies to create a positive environment where women and girls seek reproductive education and services.
6. Build the capacity and visibility of Black Women’s organizations that advocate for, educate about, or directly provide reproductive health services.

Partnering Organizations:

• Trust Black Women (National) (website under construction)
• SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, Atlanta
• SPARK Reproductive Justice Now, Atlanta
• SisterLove, Inc., Atlanta
• Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago
• Black Women’s Health Imperative, Washington, DC
• SisterSong NY, New York City
• California Black Women’s Health Project, California (statewide)
• Black Women for Wellness, Los Angeles
• Family Preservation Collective

What You Can Do

Watch

Join your sisters by telling us in the loop about local anti-abortion billboards, legislation, or rallies. Contact  the nearest Trust Black Women partnering organization ( in California it’s Black Women for Wellness & California Black Women’s Health Project) to speak up for your community. Send your information to

Write

Write a letter to the editor of your local print and online news publication, community radio or online radio station, blog, or use your social media to support Black women and our reproductive options. We have strong messaging that supports our human right to reproductive justice. If you need a template or sample, contact SisterSong and Trust Black Women here. Send us a copy at

Advocate

Contact us directly or the nearest Trust Black Women partnering organization to find out about organizing efforts near you. If you want to stop reproductive injustices in your local community and you would like us to help promote your efforts at 

Share

Send information about Trust Black Women to your friends through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Give

You can give a financial contribution to Trust Black Women and support our national organizing. Maybe you are too busy to work on a campaign but you agree that Women’s Rights are Human Rights. Donate here. Specify you are contributing to Trust Black Women.

Join

Our campaign has been endorsed by many people who do Trust Black Women. Following is a partial list of endorsers who signed the following Statement of Solidarity:

Statement of Solidarity with African American Women

We who trust women stand in solidarity with and support of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, SisterLove, Planned Parenthood of Georgia, and Feminist Women’s Health Center to affirm our belief that every woman has the human right to decide if and when she will have a baby, and the right to parent the children she already has with the social supports necessary. In our struggle for reproductive justice, African American women have a unique history that we must remember in order to ensure bodily sovereignty, dignity, and collective uplift of our community. The choices that women of color make are based on their lived experiences in this country and reflect multiple oppressions, including race, class, and gender, and their efforts to resist them. It is unacceptable to speak to the needs of any woman, or her children without taking into consideration the realities that exist in her home and local community.

We affirm that an African American woman’s ability to determine if and when she will have children demands that she control the conditions under which she will give birth and have the power to decide the spacing of her children. These freedoms speak to the power and necessity of the preventive care of women before they become pregnant and the importance of comprehensive sex education for all of our children to understand their human right to sexuality in an empowering and responsible way. It means fully funding public education, protecting the environment in all communities, and eliminating sexual violence for all women.

We affirm that an African American woman’s ability to determine if and when she does not have children must include a full range of options including the right to have an abortion. For women of color the privilege to exercise this right all too often hinges on other factors in her home and community. Abortion must be approached in the context of the individual woman and the circumstances surrounding her, such as poverty, sexual abuse, or the lack of health care. To extract a woman from the context of her life dishonors her lived experiences and the plight of a broader community of people.

We affirm that African American women have the human right to parent the children they already have. To ensure the full enjoyment of this right, they must also have access to the social supports necessary to raise their children in safe environments and healthy communities, without fear of violence from individuals or intervention by the government. A continuum of care is essential to protect the lives of women and children. And we must prioritize the needs of children after birth. This includes funding education, investing in health care reform for all, ensuring food security and prioritizing the unification of our families through the provision of social supports to protect the most vulnerable.

Protecting women and children requires a commitment to these principles. It is a matter of reproductive health, reproductive rights, and ultimately Reproductive Justice.

February 2010

Signed during 2010 Georgia Campaign by the following:

Marcia Ann Gillespie, Writer, Editor Emerita Ms. and Essence Magazines

Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, Black Women’s Health Imperative

Jewell Jackson McCabe, President Emeritus of National Coalition of 100 Black Women

Dorothy Roberts, Law Professor of Northwestern University, author of Killing the Black Body

Toni Bond Leonard, Black Women for Reproductive Justice

Rev. Carlton Veazey, President/CEO, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Faye Wattleton, Center for the Advancement of Women

Janice Mathis, Rainbow PUSH

Rev. Penny Willis, Black Church Initiative, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Gloria Steinem, Activist

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize Winner and Activist

Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Research and Resource Center, Spelman College

Angela Davis, Scholar & Activist

Women’s Media Center

Julian Bond, Board Chair, NAACP

The Honorable Barbara Smith, Albany, NY

Byllye Avery and Ngina Lythcott, The Avery Institute of Social Change

Dazon Dixon Diallo, SisterLove, Inc.

Rev. Susan Newman, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

Paris Hatcher, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!

Reverend Antionette Kemp, Associate Minister, United Ghana Christian Church, Atlanta

Rev. Margaret E. Howland, Presbytery of Hudson River, Yonkers, New York

Paul D. Simmons, PhD, Th.M., Louisville

Rev. Laura Loving

Colleen Bowers, Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options, PCUSA

Rev. Elizabeth Griswold

Rabbi Andrew Bossov, Cherry Hill, NJ

Rev. Dottie Mathews, Associate Minister, Fox Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Appleton, WI

Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, Founder Progressive Faith Foundation

Rev. Cynthia S. Bumb, Pastor, Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ, St. Louis, MO

Rev. Jack Zylman, Birmingham, AL

Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker

Rev. Thomas A. Haller

Janet A. Holden, Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Oak Park, IL

The Rev. Dr. Jean Rodenbough, Greensboro, NC

Rev. Brenda Fletchall, Oklahoma

Patricia Relf Hanavan, Richland, MI

Barbara Harrison Condon, Idaho

Rev. Janet Schlenker, Aurora, Colorado

Rev. Steve Clapp, Christian Community, Inc.

Rev. Karen Lipinczyk, Pastor, St. Peter’s UCC, Wadesville, IN

Bani Hines Hudson, Activist, Louisville, KY

Diane Griffin, Founder/CEO, Mercedes Parra Foundation

Lois “Toni” McClendon, Pittsburgh, PA

Joanne Smith, Girls for Gender Equity

Lynn Roberts, PhD, Hunter College Urban Public Health Program & SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

Barbara Berney, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management, Hunter College

Sikivu Hutchinson, editor, blackfemlens.org

Loretta Ross, Heidi Williamson, Serena Garcia, Monica Simpson, Corean Elam, and Laura Jimenez, Staff of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

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Trust Black Women Founding Partners

Deborah Arrindell, American Social Health Association, Washington, DC

Byllye Avery, The Avery Institute and Black Women’s Health Imperative, Boston

Asha Bandele, Writer, New York City

Jasmine Burnett, SisterSong New York City, Brooklyn

Folasade Campbell, Community Center for Family Preservation, Staten Island, NY

Crystal Crawford, California Black Women’s Health Project, Los Angeles

Dazon Dixon Diallo, SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project, Atlanta

Janette Robinson Flint, Black Women for Wellness, Los Angeles

Nourbese Flint, Black Women for Wellness, Los Angeles

Serena Garcia, SisterSong Communications Coordinator, Atlanta

Marcia Gillespie (in individual capacity), New York City

Paris Hatcher, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, Atlanta

Bani Hines-Hudson, Kentucky Health Justice Network, Louisville

Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Washington, DC

Laura Jimenez, SisterSong Deputy Coordinator, Atlanta

Toni Bond Leonard, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago

Pascale Leone, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Washington, DC

Pamela J. Merritt, Writer & Blogger, St. Louis

Sarah Noble, Milwaukee Reproductive Justice Coalition

Mary Kay Penn, Consultant, New York City

Shanebrae Price, SisterLove Women’s AIDS Project, Atlanta

Lynn Roberts, CUNY and SisterSong, New Jersey

Kelley Robinson, Choice USA, Washington, DC

Loretta Ross, SisterSong National Coordinator, Atlanta

Cherisse Scott, Black Women for Reproductive Justice, Chicago

Belle Taylor-McGhee, Consultant, San Francisco

Emily Tynes, ACLU (in individual capacity), New York City

Nikema Williams, Planned Parenthood of SE, Atlanta

Heidi Williamson, SisterSong National Advocacy Coordinator, Atlanta