Loretta Ross has a 25-year history in the womenâs movement, both in ending violence against women and promoting reproductive justice in the United States and internationally, and was active in the black nationalist and civil rights movements. A founding member of SisterSong, Loretta Ross became National Coordinator in 2005. In 2004, Loretta was National Co-Director of the April 25, 2004 March for Womenâs Lives in Washington, DC, the largest protest march in US history with more than one million participants. From 1996-2004, she was the Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE) in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an expert on human rights, womenâs issues, diversity issues, hate groups and right-wing organizations. Ross is presently writing a book on reproductive rights entitled Black Abortion. In 2003, Ross received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law degree from Arcadia University.
Ross was one of the first African American women to direct the first rape crisis center in the United States in the 1970s. From 1985 to 1989, she served as the Director of Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women, organizing the first national conference on Women of Color and Reproductive Rights in 1987. Prior to developing NCHRE in 1996, she served as the national program research director for the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR) (formerly the National Anti-Klan Network) from 1990 to 1995 and program director of the National Black Womenâs Health Project from 1989-1990. She is a political commentator for Pacifica News Service, and has appeared as a political commentator on Good Morning America, The Donahue Show, The Charlie Rose Show, CNN, and BET.
Loretta Rossâs recent publications include:
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice (South End Press, 2004), co-authored with Jael Silliman, Marlene Fried, and Elena Gutierrez âThe Color of Choiceâ in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (South End Press, 2006) âAfrican American Women and Abortion After Roe,â in Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle: 1950-2000 (Beacon Press) edited by Rickie Solinger âBringing Human Rights Home: Human Rights Education for the 21st Century,â in Social Education, 62(6), National Council for the Social Studies Lorettaâs talk will be called âClaiming Our Bodies Through the Human Rights Frameworkâ. It will discuss the 8 categories of human rights to which everyone is entitled, and how to account for differences and diversities in making human rights claims.
www.theeverybodyconference.wordpress.com
Loretta Ross: Claiming Our Bodies through the Human Rights Framework