Byllye Avery

{{short description|American activist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}} {{Infobox scientist |name = Byllye Avery |image = |image_size = 150px |birth_date={{birth date and age|1937|10|20}} |birth_place = Waynesville, Georgia, U.S. |field = |work_institutions = |alma_mater = University of Florida<br />Talladega College |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = National Black Women's Health Project |prizes = }}

'''Byllye Yvonne Avery''' (born October 20, 1937) is an American health care activist. A proponent of reproductive justice, Avery has worked to develop healthcare services and education that address black women's mental and physical health stressors.<ref name="Oxford" /> She is best known as the founder of the National Black Women's Health Project, the first national organization to specialize in Black women's reproductive health issues. For her work with the NBWHP, she has received the MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship for Social Contribution and the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, among other awards.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Byllye Y. Avery|url=http://www.blackwomenshealth.org/staff-and-board-members/board-member/byllye-nbsp-y.-nbsp-avery-nbsp/_back_Staff.html?|last=|first=|date=|website=Black Women's Health Imperative|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=May 7, 2020}}</ref>

== Family and education == Avery was born in Waynesville, Georgia and grew up on a farm in DeLand, Florida. She is the daughter of L. Alyce M. Ingram, a schoolteacher.<ref name="Oxford">{{cite web|last1=Price|first1=Kimala|title=Avery, Byllye|url=http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/opr/t0001/e1263|website=Oxford African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford|access-date=February 18, 2017}}</ref> Her mother graduated of Bethune-Cookman College. Her father, Quitman Reddick, owned a neighborhood store. He was killed when Avery was 14 years old. The oldest of three children, Avery assumed a lot of responsibility from a young age.<ref name="ross voices">Loretta Ross, [http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Avery.pdf "Smith Voices of Feminism Oral History Project Interview with Byllye Avery"]. Accessed on March 25, 2018</ref>

Avery attended college at Talladega College and earned her BA in psychology in 1959.<ref name="Oxford" /> She met her husband, Wesley Avery, while at Talladega College and they married in 1960.<ref name="Oxford" /> Byllye and Wesley Avery had two children Wesley and Sonia born in 1961 and 1966, 5 years apart.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Byllye Avery |url=https://wams.nyhistory.org/life-story/byllye-avery/ |access-date=2026-05-29 |website=Women & the American Story |language=en}}</ref>

In 1967, Avery received a fellowship to obtain her master's in special education at the University of Florida Gainesville. Upon earning her M.Ed. in 1969,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/357/|title=Byllye Avery - MacArthur Foundation|website=www.macfound.org|access-date=February 16, 2019}}</ref> she became a special education teacher. In 1970, only a few months after starting her new position, her husband suffered a fatal heart attack. He was only thirty-three years old and it was discovered after his death that he had very high blood pressure. At the time she was also pregnant with their third child. The death of her husband helped catalyze Avery's commitment to improving health care and health education in the Black community.<ref name="ross voices"/><ref name="Nebbe">{{Cite web|url=https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post/byllye-avery-advocate-african-american-womens-health|title=Byllye Avery: Advocate for African-American Women's Health|last=Nebbe|first=Charity|website=www.iowapublicradio.org|language=en|access-date=February 16, 2019}}</ref>

Avery met her wife, Ngina Lythcott, in 1989, and the two were married in 2005. Lythcott is a public health practitioner and activist.

== Activism == In the early 1970s Avery began participating in consciousness-raising groups and legal abortion referral services. In response to the lack of access to abortion and other reproductive health needs that low-income Black women faced in her community, Avery and her colleagues Joan Edelson, Judy Levy, and Margaret Parrish opened the Gainesville Women's Health Center (GWHC) in 1974.<ref name="Nebbe"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/opr/t0001/e1263|title=Byllye Avery|last=Price|first=Kimala|website=Oxford African American Studies Center|publisher=Oxford|access-date=March 8, 2018}}</ref> It was the first abortion and gynecological care clinic in the city.<ref name="Oxford" /> They opened these facilities after a petition to open a Planned Parenthood clinic in Gainesville was denied.<ref name="Oxford" /> The GWHC mission statement was to "help women solve the crisis-producing situation of unplanned, unwanted pregnancy", at a low cost.<ref>University of Florida Digital Collections. Accessed on April 1, 2018.</ref> The clinic provided abortions and contraceptive services, facilitated sexuality workshops, and provided other women's health-related training and services tailored to Black women, such as sickle cell anemia testing. To help educate women on best health services, the staff created a monthly newsletter called ''Sage-Femme''.

In 1978, Avery helped to found Birthplace, an alternative birthing center in Gainesville. Certified nurse-midwives assisted women with deliveries and Avery personally assisted in the birth of one hundred patients before her departure.<ref name="Oxford" />

In 1981, while serving on the board of directors for National Women's Health Network, Avery started a two-year long project called the Black Women's Health Project. As part of this project, Avery planned The Conference of Black Women's Health Issues which was held at Spelman College in June 1983.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Our Story|url=http://www.blackwomenshealth.org/about-us/our-story.html|last=|first=|date=|website=|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326135958/http://www.blackwomenshealth.org/about-us/our-story.html |archive-date=March 26, 2017 |access-date=May 7, 2020}}</ref> Two thousand women attended the three-day event. Topics included domestic violence, diabetes, sexual abuse, obesity, sexuality, childbirth, mental health as well as holistic wellness. It encouraged attendees to take charge of their health through consciousness-raising, community organizing around health issues, and self-examination.<ref name="Oxford" /> Following the conference, Avery founded National Black Women's Health Project, now known as the Black Women's Health Imperative, officially in 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Sillman|first1=Jael|last2=Fried|first2=Marlene, Gerber|last3=Ross|first3=Loretta|last4=Gutierrez|first4=Elena R.|title=Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice|date=2004|publisher=South End Press|isbn=978-0-89608-729-3|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/undividedrightsw00jael}}</ref> It is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to improving health and wellness among Black women. NBWHP opened an advocacy and policy office in Washington, D.C., in 1991. By 1991, the NBWHP had chapters in twenty-five states and had expanded its reach to work with women in Belize, Jamaica, South Africa, Nigeria, and Brazil.<ref name="Oxford" /> Recalling the negative attitudes she was taught about sex as a child, Avery taught her daughters to celebrate their bodies and menstruation. When her first daughter turned eleven, Avery gave her a cake that read "Happy Birthday, Happy Menstruation!"<ref>{{Cite book|last=Love|first=Barbara J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HRouCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA23|title=Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975|date=September 22, 2006|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-09747-8|language=en}}</ref> Soon after, she gave a workshop on menstruation and childbearing at her daughter's elementary school that she developed into a film ''On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other''<ref>[http://www.indiana.edu/~bfca/collection/special/bavery.html ''On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other'']</ref> (1987), the first documentary film by African-American women sharing their perspectives on menstruation, sex, and love.<ref>{{cite book |title=On becoming a woman: mothers & daughters talking together |oclc= 30694664}}</ref><ref name="Oxford" />

Along with prominent African-American leaders such as Shirley Chisholm, Maxine Waters, Dorothy Height, and Faye Wattleton, issued and signed a public statement, "We Remember: African American Women for Reproductive Freedom", in 1989.<ref>{{cite web |title=We Remember: African American Women for Reproductive Freedom |url=https://100years.plannedparenthood.org/content/images/era-4/WeRememberBrocure.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326053938/https://100years.plannedparenthood.org/content/images/era-4/WeRememberBrocure.pdf |archive-date=March 26, 2019}}</ref> The statement supports reproductive freedom (including the right to have children, the right to access to contraceptive services and reproductive health information, and the right to health care as well as safe and legal abortions.) The statement connected racism, poverty, and violence to negative reproductive health outcomes for African American women. The statement was reprinted repeatedly and eventually circulated over 250,000 copies. The statement can still be found in many anthologies on women's rights and activism.<ref name="Oxford" /> Avery was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship this same year in the area of health policy.<ref name=":0" />

In 1990, Avery, along with fifteen other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. The organization was created to end the stigma against abortions in the Black community and to make abortions more accessible for Black women.<ref name="Cullen-DuPont2000">{{cite book|author=Kathryn Cullen-DuPont|title=Encyclopedia of women's history in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oIro7MtiFuYC|access-date=March 2, 2018|date= March 2018|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-0-8160-4100-8|page=6}}</ref>

Avery has written and lectured widely on how race, class and sex impact women's healthcare. She has called the health discrepancies between African-American and white women a "conspiracy of silence".<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Black women's health book: speaking for ourselves|last=While|first=Evelyn C.|publisher=Seal|year=1994|isbn=1878067400|location=Seattle, WA|pages=6}}</ref> She has been a visiting fellow at the Harvard University School of Public Health; she has served on the Charter Advisory Committee for the Office of Research on Women's Health of the National Institutes of Health; she has been a health issues advisor for the Kellogg Foundation's International Leadership Program; and she has served as a consultant on women's healthcare in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.<ref>"Neva, Goodwin. Encyclopedia of Women in American History. "Byllye Avery." Accessed on March 30, 2018.</ref>

==Awards and recognition==

* 1989: MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship for Social Contribution<ref name=":0">Byllye Avery: Women's Healthcare Leader. MacArthur Foundation. https://www.macfound.org/fellows/357/</ref> *1989: Essence Award for Community Service<ref name=":1" /> * 1994: Academy of Science Institute of Medicine's Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care<ref>{{Cite web|title=Collection: Byllye Avery papers {{!}} Smith College Finding Aids|url=https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/984|website=findingaids.smith.edu|access-date=May 7, 2020}}</ref> * 1994: Grassroots Realist Award by the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus<ref name=":1" /> * 1995: Dorothy I. Height Lifetime Achievement Award<ref>{{Cite web|title=Billye Avery, the first person, after Dr. Height, to receive the Dorothy I. Height Lifetime Achievement Award featured on PBS Special|url=http://stylemagazine.com/news/2013/feb/21/billye-avery-first-person-after-dr-height-receive-/|website=stylemagazine.com|access-date=May 7, 2020}}</ref> * 1995: President's Citation of the American Public Health Association<ref>{{Cite web|title=APHA Presidential Citation|url=https://www.apha.org/about-apha/apha-awards/presidential-citation/apha-presidential-citation|website=www.apha.org|access-date=May 7, 2020}}</ref> * 1998: Business and Professional Women's New Horizons Award<ref name=":1" /> * 2008: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Impact Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women<ref name=":1" /> * 2010: Audre Lorde Spirit of Fire Award from the Fenway Health Center<ref name=":1" />

== Selected bibliography == * {{cite journal | last = Avery | first = Byllye | title = Empowerment through wellness | journal = Yale Journal of Law and Feminism | volume = 4 | issue = 1 | pages = 147–154 | publisher = Yale Law School | date =Fall 1991 | url = http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/yjfem4&div=18&id=&page= }} [http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1056&context=yjlf Pdf.] *Avery, Byllye Y. "Breathing life into ourselves." ''Feminism and Community'' (1995): 147. *Avery, B. (19<ref>{{Cite web |title=Byllye Avery |url=https://wams.nyhistory.org/life-story/byllye-avery/ |access-date=2026-05-29 |website=Women & the American Story |language=en}}</ref>99). ''An Altar of Words: Wisdom, Comfort and Inspiration''. New York: Broadway. {{ISBN|978-0615332383}} * Avery, Byllye. "Who does the work of public health?." ''American journal of public health'' 92.4 (2002): 570–575. * "Byllye Avery." ''The New York Historical'', 2026.

==References== {{reflist}}

== External links == *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110526223551/http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/bec/staff/avery.html Avery's short biography] from the Center of Bioethics at Columbia University. *[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9125364?tocId=9125364 Avery's entry] at the online Encyclopædia Britannica *[http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/findingaids/view?docId=VAC1089.xml&brand=general&startDoc=1 Byllye Avery Collection at Indiana University Bloomington Black Film Center/Archive] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20170204085634/https://www.smith.edu/library/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Avery.pdf Oral History interview] with Loretta Ross, Voices of Feminism Oral History Project, Smith College * [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/984 Byllye Avery papers], at the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History, Smith College

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Avery, Byllye}} Category:1937 births Category:MacArthur Fellows Category:University of Florida College of Education alumni Category:Living people Category:African-American psychologists Category:American women psychologists Category:21st-century American psychologists Category:People from DeLand, Florida Category:American health activists Category:Bates College alumni Category:African-American activists Category:Academics from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Academics from Florida Category:21st-century African-American academics Category:21st-century American academics Category:21st-century African-American women Category:20th-century African-American people Category:20th-century African-American women Category:20th-century American psychologists