Loretta Ross

Ross was one of the first women of color who won the lawsuit against A.H. Robbins Company for their defective intrauterine product, Dalkon Shield.

Ross was born in Temple, Texas on August 16, 1953, the sixth of eight children in a blended family.[1] Her father, who immigrated from Jamaica,[2] was an Army weapons specialist and drill sergeant. He retired from the military in 1963, worked for the Post Office, and held odd jobs to support his family [1] Ross' mother worked as a domestic worker and owned a music store, though worked as a housewife while Ross was growing up.[1] For her primary education, Ross attended integrated schools: Army schools through second grade, then public schools. She was double-promoted in elementary grades and was an honors student in high school.[1] She went to Army school through second grade and transferred to public schools afterwards. Ross' grades were high and she received honors during her school years.[1] In 1964, at age 11, Ross became a survivor of sexual assault,[3] where she was beaten and raped by a stranger. In 1968, at the age of 15, Ross was raped by her distant cousin, became pregnant, and gave birth to her son, Howard.[1][3] Ross lost her scholarship from Radcliffe College of Harvard University when she decided to keep her son instead of sending him away for adoption.[1]

In 1970, Ross attended Howard University for her tertiary education. During her undergraduate career there, she became actively involved in black nationalist politics,[3] civil rights movements such as black women feminism ideologies and racial issues,[4] and tenant organizing.[1] Ross joined a Marxist-Leninist discussion group called the D.C. Study Group, and the South Africa Support Project.[1]

In 1976, at age 23, Ross experienced sterilization abuse when she was sterilized with Dalkon Shield. The Daikon Shield was a type of intrauterine device that was marketed despite being found to be defective. The device caused major negative health threats to its users,[5] especially inflicting harm on African American and poor communities. Ross was among the first women of color to win the lawsuit against the manufacturer of Dalkon Shield, A.H. Robins. This incident has influenced Ross tremendously. Because of this experience, she found her passion advocating for reproductive justice and racial politics.[1] In November 1980, the murder of her close friend and political ally, Yulanda Ward, became the turning point in Ross' life as an activist.[2] Ross has referred to this murder as a political assassination.[1]

In 2007, Ross completed her bachelor's degree at Agnes Scott College.[2] Under the direction of professor Elizabeth Hackett, Ross wrote Just Choices: Women of Color, Reproductive Health and Human Rights, her capstone Women's Studies independent study project at Agnes Scott.[6] She is currently pursuing her PhD in Women's Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.[7]

In 2018, she was hired by Arizona State University to teach a 400-level course on Reproductive Justice, a topic on which she has co-authored three books.

In 1977, Ross and a group of Black and minority activists coined the term "women of color" at the National Women's Conference as a unifying term to address political and social issues.[8]

Driven by her personal experience as a survivor of sexual assault, in 1979, Ross became the third Executive Director of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center,[9] the first rape crisis center that was primarily run by and geared toward providing resources for women of color.[1]

In August 1980, Ross, accompanied by others from the DC Rape Crisis Center, organized the First National Conference on Third World Women and Violence in Washington, DC.[10] This was the first conference that brought together women from different racial backgrounds, unifying the participants towards achieving the goal of cultivating a new, holistic network for people of color, both women and men, to advocate for anti-violence activism.

In 1985, the National Organization for Women (NOW) hired Ross to be the director of the Women of Color Programs to both improve participation by women of color in NOW, create coalitions with organizations focused on issues affecting women of color, and to respond to criticism by women of color who felt mainstream feminist organizations were ignoring issues of race and class.[11] Ross organized women of color delegations for the pro-choice marches NOW sponsored in 1986 and 1989, and organized the first national conference on Women of Color and Reproductive Rights in 1987.[1]

In response to the Supreme Court's Webster decision in 1989, Ross co-coordinated production of the pathbreaking statement "We Remember: African American Women Are For Reproductive Freedom."[1]

As Program Director (1989–90) for the National Black Women's Health Project (now known as the Black Women's Health Imperative), she coordinated the first national conference of African American women for reproductive rights. From 1980 to 1988, she was a member of the D.C. Commission on Women. From 1991 to 1995, Ross was National Program Research Director for the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly the National Anti-Klan Network), where she directed projects on right-wing organizations in South Africa, Klan and neo-Nazi involvement in anti-abortion violence, and human rights education in the U.S. In 1996 she created the National Center for Human Rights Education, a training and resource center for grassroots activists aimed at applying a human rights analysis to injustices in the U.S. Active internationally, Ross is a founding member of the International Council of African Women and of the Network of East-West Women. She has been a regular participant in International Women and Health Meetings and helped organize the delegation of 1100 African American women to the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1984. She attended United Nations Women's Conferences in Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing.[1]

In 1997, with Luz Rodriguez and 14 others, Ross co-founded SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective[12] which aims to build an effective network between individuals in advocating improvements within institutional policies that impact the reproductive lives of marginalized communities. Ross served as the National Coordinator for the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective from 2005 until 2012.[1]

Ross was one of the African American women who first coined the term "reproductive justice," with the aim to frame the pursuit of reproductive justice using the social justice framework.[3] In 2002, Ross was one of the interviewees featured in the Global Feminism Project archive, which is a project organized under the University of Michigan, compiling interviews of feminist icons from many different countries.

Ross acted as National Co-Director for women of color[1] of Washington, D.C.'s March for Women's Lives on April 25, 2004.[13] She was the Founder and Executive Director of Atlanta, Georgia's National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE) from 1996–2004.[13]

Ross has published books on reproductive justice, as well as many articles on Black women and abortion. In 2004, Ross co-authored Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice,[14] a book that uncovers the unrevealed history of the activism of women of color in organizing for reproductive justice. Ross contributed her insights in a chapter entitled "The Color of Choice" in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, which was published in 2016. Currently, Ross is working on her soon-to-be published book entitled Black Abortion that will focus on reproductive rights issues.[3]

Ross served as a visiting Associate Professor in the Women’s Studies department at Hampshire College.[15] She taught a course “White Supremacy in the age of Trump” for the academic year 2017-2018.[1] Ross is a consultant for Smith College, where she is expanding the Sophia Smith Collection, which includes her personal archives.[16] She has served as a visiting professor at Smith and has organized two community-wide conferences on Calling In the Calling Out Culture.[1] She is currently a Visiting Clinical Professor at Arizona State University in the School of Social Transformation teaching a 400-level course on Reproductive Justice.

From 2017-2018, Ross was a visiting Associate Professor in the Women’s Studies department at Hampshire College, teaching the course “White Supremacy in the Age of Trump” for the current academic year.

Alongside Rickie Solinger, Ross co-authored Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, which details the field of reproductive justice, particularly in regards to experiences involving women of color and through a human rights analytical lens.[17] Her most recent book, Radical Reproductive Justice was published by Feminist Press in 2017 and co-edited by Lynn Roberts, Erika Derkas, Whitney Peoples, and Pamela Bridgewater-Toure, discusses over two decades of works of SisterSong.[18]

Recently Ross has spoken out against "call-out culture"[19] and is working on a new book entitled Calling In the Calling Out Culture: Detoxing Our Movement.[20] The book is due to be published in 2021. [21]

Ross has appeared on the following North American television series and networks: CNN, BET, "Lead Story," "Good Morning America," "The Donahue Show," "Democracy Now," and "The Charlie Rose Show", Oprah Winfrey Radio, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times.[22]

• Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (2017) Oakland, Calif.: University of California Press (with Rickie Solinger) ISBN 9780520288188
• Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique (2017) New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York. ISBN 9781558614376
• "The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice" in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (2016) Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822363057
• Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice, 2004.
• Just Choices: Women of Color, Reproductive Health and Human Rights (2001) Decatur, Ga.: Agnes Scott College.
• Women's Watch: Violence in the Anti-Abortion Movement (1995) Atlanta, Ga.: Center for Democratic Renewal.

• Ross's webpage
• Loretta J. Ross Papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections.
• Undivided Rights Book Project records at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections.
• Her oral history is part of the Voices of Feminism Oral History Projects oral histories at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections.