By Dara Mathis, Photo Illustration: Alanna Fields; Photo: Spelman College Archives, The New York Times, November 11, 2023
On June 24, 1983, Byllye Avery welcomed busloads of Black women to the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta. She was in a state of disbelief. The women had traveled from Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania — even as far away as California — for a three-day event billed as the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues.
She had hoped that 200 women would attend; nearly 2,000 showed up.
The event inspired a remarkable change in attitudes. There were panels and workshops on high blood pressure, diabetes, lupus, childbirth and mental health. But more than addressing specific illnesses, the conference encouraged Black women to share information and consider how oppression affected their interactions with the health system. Crucially, it reframed health as inextricable from racism.
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