Welcome to the August edition of the Amplify series: Shapers of a Movement. In this edition, we decided to do something different. We decided to talk to someone actively organizing to improve their community. What did we talk about? Well, the impact women of color and nonbinary folx have in organizing movements, and how they create spaces, fight to enact better policies for the community at large, and continue to fight and manage in an area that is often dominated by cisgender, white, and male people.

HerStry’s monthly theme for January, “The Rest of The Story,” connects with our Amplify of the Month. Learn about the extraordinary life of Anna Julia Cooper, a famous scholar in social science circles, also known as “the Mother of Black Feminism.” Check out how she spent her life advocating for equal education for Black women, and how she changed the course of history and HerStry.

This month’s AMPLIFY features Dr. Sigird Phyllis Stearner, a scientist who revolutionized not just the field of radiation biology, but science’s relationship with disability inclusivity.

This month’s AMPLIFY features six Black women in 1881 that suffered from injustice, wage theft and opression, who came together to fight against it all. They formed The Women of the Atlanta Washerwomen Coalition and conducted a two week-strike that transformed American employer/consumer behavior.

This month’s AMPLIFY features scholar and social justice and reproductive justice advocate/activist Dorothy Roberts. Dorothy Roberts is a Critical Race Sociologist, and the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her studies and work focus on the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status through a policy lens.