The Women of Black Lives Matter

From the Winter 2015 issue of Ms.: Patrisse Cullors, along with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and organized the Black Lives Matter campaign after the 2012 killing of the unarmed young Floridian Trayvon Martin by a self-appointed vigilante.

“Movement and change take a significant amount of time,” said Cullors. “We are in a state of emergency, [but] things take decades, centuries to change. To unearth those systems––racism, patriarchy, transphobia––takes consistency and perseverance.” 

(For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION, Alfred A. Knopf—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.)

What Angela Alsobrooks’ Primary Win Means for Black Women in Politics

We currently have zero Black women governors and only one Black woman in the Senate. But that could soon change.

This week, exciting news came out of Maryland’s Democratic primary race: U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks won big despite being outspent 10 to 1 by her opponent, Rep. David Trone, a wealthy businessman who threw more than $60 million of his own money into his campaign. Alsobrooks is the county executive for Maryland’s second-largest county, and this win means she, along with Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, could become the United States’ fourth and fifth Black women to ever serve in the U.S. Senate.

Alsobrooks’ primary win underscores her electability, despite the attacks she endured suggesting otherwise. Angela Alsbrooks represents a new generation of leaders urgently needed in a body that lacks a single elected Black woman. Don’t buy the line that she won’t trounce Larry Hogan in November. 

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Challenges and Progress for Mothers in Political Office; North Macedonia Elects First Woman President

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: why expanding women’s power isn’t a single-issue effort but is a prerequisite to progress across the board; the number of women running for the U.S. House is down, with Republican women seeing the greatest decline; Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks won an impressive victory in the U.S. Senate primary; Suzanne LaFrance on track to be Anchorage’s first woman mayor; in North Macedonia, where Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova became the first woman president; and more.

‘Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America’: The Ms. Q&A with Shefali Luthra

Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. But according to Shefali Luthra, author of Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, “it had been on the verge of collapse for decades.” After all, most Medicaid recipients had lost insurance coverage for the procedure in 1977 and a plethora of restrictions—from parental consent and notification requirements for minors, to mandated counseling sessions to dissuade people from ending their pregnancies—had long kept procedural abortion out of reach for large segments of the population.

Undue Burden digs into this lack of preparedness by introducing diverse people who have been directly impacted by the decision—people who have had to travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion, people whose highly-anticipated pregnancies became untenable, a trans man who became pregnant shortly after beginning his transition, and a young couple who lacked the emotional and financial resources to welcome a second child, among them. Their stories are juxtaposed with those of overwrought clinicians as well as staff at abortion funds. The result is a poignant and dramatic look at the stakes of losing Roe and a compassionate assessment of the human toll wrought by Dobbs.

Our Abortion Stories: ‘Many Women Are Not Able to Travel and Are Forced to Continue Pregnancies. We Must Remember Them.’

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Abortions are sought by a wide range of people for many different reasons. There is no single story. Telling stories of then and now shows how critical abortion has been and continues to be for women and girls. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)

In this edition of Our Abortion Stories, women share how abortion has shaped their lives and how abortion restrictions in Mississippi have created challenging work environments for providers.

Meet the Anti-Feminist Women’s Group Leveraging Their ‘Independence’ to Convince Americans to Vote Republican

The anti-feminist Independent Women’s Voice/Forum (IWF/V), backed by billionaires and anti-abortion zealots, is poised to use its leaders’ identities as women to convince voters that the GOP will protect Americans’ rights and freedoms, like access to birth control and the ability to choose if and when to have children. IWF/V’s past positions, the known agendas of their funders and their membership to Project 2025 belie their true intentions. 

Black Women Caught in the Digital Crosshairs

Black women are often in the crosshairs of abusive discourse driven by social media. That recent targets are often public figures suggests that social media abusers find it profitable to attack high-profile Black women who have become symbolic avatars for the group as a whole.

(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Meet the Courageous Recipients of FMF’s Global Women’s Rights Awards

The 16th annual Global Women’s Rights Awards, hosted by the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.), convened Tuesday evening in Los Angeles. This year’s awards celebrated the activism to secure final ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the bravery of both U.S. and Afghan women in the face of misogynistic laws and leadership.

The evening recognized three honorees in particular who have contributed greatly to advancing the rights of women and girls: Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Dr. Austin Dennard, and the Bread and Roses documentary team, including director Sahra Mani.