Women Who Change the World: Stories from the Fight for Social Justice (City Lights Open Media)

Nine women who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for social justice--movement leaders, organizers, and cultural workers--tell their life stories in their own words. Sharing their most vulnerable and affirming moments, they talk about the origins of their political awakenings, their struggles and aspirations, insights and victories, and what it is that keeps them going in the fight for a better world, filled with justice, hope, love and joy.

Featuring Malkia Devich-Cyril, Priscilla Gonzalez, Terese Howard, Hilary Moore, Vanessa Nosie, Roz Pelles, Loretta Ross, Yomara Velez, and Betty Yu

Loretta Ross is an organizer, movement builder, educator, author, and innovator from the local to the global stage, as a Black feminist working on issues of ending violence against women, reproductive justice, and anti-racism. She reflects on the relationships between race and gender in this interview and traces the emergence of her own consciousness around gender equality, racism, and self-determination. She details her work to build collective power with women of color, including her own choice to stay in the movement after her close friend and political comrade was assassinated in Washington, D.C. and the organizations she worked in were faced with COINTELPRO surveillance and repression. Loretta shares her analysis about the need for social justice movements to welcome folks in, and to educate in order to build relationships, movement, and solidarity. Loretta was born in Temple, Texas and now resides in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Hilary Moore is an organizer, educator and author who works within an anti-racist framework that links movements to abolish the police and the military with environmental justice, racial justice, and anti-imperialist struggles in the U.S. and internationally. She draws connections between eco-fascism, white supremacy, policing, the military, and surveillance that forecasts many of the dynamics we see today. In the following interview, she reflects on the process of her own political development and explores the meaning of belonging, creating community and connection. She describes the importance of mentorship and the role of storytelling as a way to build connection, leadership, and movement. Born in Sacramento, California, and raised in rural northern California, Hilary now lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Roz Pelles is an organizer, strategist, movement builder, and attorney. Joining the civil justice movement as a young teenager, Roz has organized around issues of civil rights, workers' rights, police brutality, and anti-racism - connecting these issues to broader issues of social justice and liberation. Organizing within an anti-capitalist and anti-racist framework during a period of white supremacist resurgence across the U.S., she is a survivor of the Greensboro massacre in 1979 and is now the Strategic Advisor to the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Roz shares her political trajectory and analysis of the need for a multi-racial, multi-issue movement developed from the bottom-up and reflects on her organizing philosophy of leading from behind. She describes what it means to balance parenting and family life within the context of organizing - accompanied by government repression and political assassination. Roz was born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and today resides in Maryland.

Vanessa Nosie is an organizer and spokesperson for Apache Stronghold and works as an archaeology aide with the San Carlos Apache Tribe Historic Preservation office and Archeology Department. She is Chiricahua Apache, enrolled into the San Carlos Apache tribe and resides on the San Carlos Reservation, which was created as a concentration camp for several Apache tribes, where they were forcibly relocated as prisoners of war. Vanessa links her work to that history of colonization and genocide, which doesn't remain in the past but continues today. In the following interview, she connects the themes of motherhood and lineage to the history of colonization and racism in the U.S. and the need for an understanding of that history in order to heal and identify solutions. Her organizing work is a struggle for the very survival of the Apache people and Mother Earth and calls for unity among all people to confront the forces of greed and power that threaten us all. Vanessa was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised on the San Carlos Reservation, where she resides today.

Betty Yu is a cultural worker whose work has focused on issues including workers' rights, immigration, gentrification, police violence, class, race, and media justice. Her work links anti-Asian violence and racism with the racism experienced by Black and Indigenous communities and creates opportunities for education and solidarity. In the following interview, she reflects on her own process of understanding that the issues impacting her family and community existed within the context of broader struggles for social justice, describes how she initially engaged with community organizing as a teenager, reflects on the meaning of belonging and accountability, explores the role of the arts in social justice work to educate and to create space for the changing of hearts and minds, the importance of collaboration with community, and the power of storytelling in popular education to shift narratives as part of an organizing strategy. The daughter of immigrants, Betty was born and raised in New York City, and grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where she lives today.