Women Who Change the World

Inspiring oral histories of women fighting for justice and radical social change at community, state, and national levels.

Women's labor has been essential to every social justice movement. For centuries, women have led freedom and decolonization struggles, anti-poverty battles, voting rights campaigns, and organizations for racial justice and sexual freedom. Women have not only been on the front lines, they have also served as the healers, teachers, cultural workers, and strategists of historic movements--but their views and voices have seldom been heard or studied. For every famous woman at the head of a movement, there are thousands whose efforts go unsung.

In this timely and deeply inspiring book, award-winning oral historian Lynn Lewis brings together the stories of nine exceptional women who describe the arc of their political work from their earliest formative experiences, to the strategies they developed as movement leaders, community organizers, and radical cultural workers. Each chapter is dedicated to one activist--Malkia Devich-Cyril, Priscilla Gonzalez, Terese Howard, Hilary Moore, Vanessa Nosie, Roz Pelles, Loretta Ross, Yomara Velez, and Betty Yu. As each reflects on the conditions that forged their political consciousness and the path their lives have taken, we discover what they have learned along the way, what they have hoped for, and what keeps them in the fight for a better world.

Honest, raw, questioning, and wise, these remarkable histories reveal the different ways adversity and oppression can catalyze the commitment to fight for the common good, and what motivates women to make enormous personal sacrifices for the sake of solidarity with others fighting injustice. Essential and timely reading for making a difference in the post-Roe era.