Author: Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center (since 1981) and Anna Julia Cooper professor of women’s studies at Spelman College. She is also an adjunct professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies where she teaches graduate courses in their doctoral program. She is the former president of the National Women’s Studies Association and serves on the Ms. Committee of Scholars. Guy-Sheftall has published a number of texts within African American and women’s studies, including the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature. Guy-Sheftall is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, among them a national Kellogg fellowship; a Woodrow Wilson fellowship for dissertations in women’s studies; and Spelman’s presidential faculty award for outstanding scholarship.

History Is Incomplete Without Black Women

Education is largely based on perspectives that do not reflect the fact that more than half the world’s population are people of color and female. It’s only when all students are able to recognize themselves in history that they can imagine a future in which they play an important role in the progress and achievement of the world.

(This story also appears in the Summer 2023 issue of Ms. magazine. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the Summer issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)

From the Vault: Coretta Scott King, a Revolutionary Woman

Coretta Scott King, a Revolutionary Woman (January 2006)

While Coretta Scott King has been celebrated as a civil rights icon, her vision of “the beloved community” was bolder and more revolutionary than her husband Martin’s. When we retell the story of radical African American activism in the 20th century, we can finally embrace Coretta Scott King as the truly revolutionary figure she was.

*This article was originally published in the Spring 2006 issue of Ms.—a few months after Coretta Scott King’s death on January 30, 2006.*