(nature sounds)
- Make a career of humanity.
Commit yourself to the noble
struggle for equal rights.
You will make a greater
person of yourself,
a greater nation of your country,
and a finer world to live in.
Wow.
Very wonderful.
What I love most about
myself is the fact that
even though I'm afraid most
of the time I do it anyway.
That somehow I muster up the
courage to take a big leap.
And I always believe in
listening attentively
with respect to people.
And in my listening to what
they say or more importantly
listening to what they don't say.
And that has served me very well.
(slow feeling music)
I grew up in Florida in a
little town called Deland.
I was the oldest of three children.
My mom was my greatest inspiration
and she always pushed me to be the best
that I could be not matter what it was.
She really taught me how to be a woman
in a challenging world.
As a black woman we didn't talk
much about emotional issues.
We didn't talk much
about our health at all.
That was considered your business.
A lot of us have had
awful things happen to us.
A lot of women are
victims of sexual abuse,
of domestic violence.
And so to admit that these
things were happening
you could easily be judged
because of what happened to you.
That you had nothing to do with.
It was a big conspiracy.
And this was before Oprah was talking
about any of this stuff in the afternoon.
I call it the conspiracy of silence.
(music)
I did not know black
women around the country.
I hadn't traveled. I didn't know people.
Why would I know people anywhere?
The National Women's Health
Network, I became a board member
and I remember one day
we were in Ann Arbor,
and I said to Norma Swenson,
"I'm thinking I'd like to do a report
on black women's health issues.
What do you think about?"
She said, "I think you should do it.
Don't let any grass grow under your feet."
I moved to Atlanta to have
the First National Conference
on Black Women's Health Issues.
We thought we'd have two to
three hundred women come.
We had close to 2000.
(soft music)
Never before had that many black women
come together around health.
What we tapped into was
the emotional health.
And my idea is the head
runs the rest of the body.
You've got to clean the
cobwebs out of your mind
and get your mind straight
and then it will direct
the rest of the body.
So we were appealing
to these women's pain.
And I took that model and brought it over
to the Black Women's Health Project.
And we started forming self-help groups.
And what we learned that was so important
that this technology works for you
no matter who you are.
No matter what color you
are, what your ethnicity is.
Everybody's got their
story inside of them.
(slow feeling music)
I can remember at the end
of our very first session
one of the women stood up and said,
"I think our theme should
be we're sick and tired
of being sick and tired."
And those were the words
of Fannie Lou Hamer.
And that became our battle cry.
(upbeat music)
- Byllye is the heart
and soul of black women.
She understands black women at their core.
She is the embodiment of
the lived experiences,
understands the challenges,
the fears, the triumphs,
the hopes and dreams of black women.
And there is no greater
advocate for our health
and wellness than Byllye Avery.
- You can cry, you can
laugh, you can get angry.
You can go through all
those range of emotions
and she made that be okay by starting it.
By just storytelling on Spelman's campus.
All the way to Black
Women's Health Imperative
becoming the national organization.
She did that and she made
it easier for me to come up
and be able to carry the torch forward.
(upbeat music) (bird sounds)
- [Judy] When I was a young
public health professional
I met Byllye Avery at a Black Women's
Health Project conference.
Personally, it was the
moment where I realized
that my voice really mattered
and it was a way for me
to integrate me and my lived experience
into the work that I was doing.
We are thankful to you
for raising your voice
and for leading the way.
At the Center of
Excellence we are committed
to listening to black women's voices
in the advancement of
black women's livelihood.
- [Byllye] Health means my entire body.
From my earrings, to my
blood pressure, to my weight,
to my heart, to my soul.
It is everything of who we are.
Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere.
We are caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly
affects all indirectly.
Do y'all hear that people?
Do you hear it?
(soft music)
