5 Activists of Color Making Women’s History
These strategists, authors, and professors are shaping U.S. history as we speak
Edited by Fola Onifade
Since launching our podcast in 2020, we’ve had many powerful women on the show who are advancing democracy, fighting Republican attacks on America’s multi-racial majority, and championing new ideas on how to fight racism.
To kick off Women’s History Month, we’re re-upping four episodes featuring some of these “she”-roes and elevating their work and their stories. This list is not exhaustive because we’re fortunate to have had so many powerful women of color on the show. You can find all of them here.
Know someone who should learn more about these incredible women? Share this page with them because that’s how we build power!
Aimee Allison on the Power of Women of Color
Aimee Allison is the founder and president of She The People, a nationally-renowned network of women of color making political and social change. (She was also the former president of Democracy in Color!)
Aimee is also a writer, innovator and champion of racial and gender justice. She has dedicated her life to achieving a multiracial democracy and she uses her platform to make the case that women of color are the saving grace of American democracy.
Listen to the full episode with Aimee below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Not a Nation of Immigrants with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Anathea Chino
Left to Right: Anathea Chino, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Advance Native Political Leadership & Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Author of “An Indigenous People’s History of the United States”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a historian, author, memoirist, and speaker. She is the author of several books and articles on indigenous peoples rights to self-determination, including the book, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and her newest book, Not a Nation of Immigrants: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy and a History of Erasure and Exclusion.
Anathea Chino is the co-founder and executive director of Advance Native Political Leadership, the first and only national native organization focused on electing Native Americans to local and state leadership.
Listen to the full episode with Roxanne and Anathea below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Pride: Hope, Struggle, and Taking Back Power with Rebecca Marques
Rebecca Marques is the Texas state director for Project One America in the Human Rights Campaign, where she leads the organization’s legislative and electoral work in the state.
Before that, she served as a political strategist for the ACLU of Texas where she led the organization’s LGBTQ and reproductive rights work at the Texas state legislature and advocacy efforts across the state.
Listen to the full episode with Rebecca below or wherever you get your podcasts.
Bold Asian American Activism and Its Roots with Judy Tzu-Chun Wu
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is currently a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine and director of the Humanities Center. She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History from Stanford and previously taught at Ohio State University.
Her first book, Dr. Mom Chung of the Fair-Haired Bastards: the Life of a Wartime Celebrity was a biography of Margaret Jessie Chung, the first American-born Chinese woman doctor.
She is also the co-editor of Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600–2000 and editor for Amerasia Journal.
Listen to the full episode with Judy below or wherever you get your podcasts.