Byllye Avery is a health care and reproductive rights activist who in the early 1980s founded the National Black Women’s Health Project (NBWHP) in Atlanta, GA, the first national group to focus on Black women’s reproductive health issues. In addition to her work at the NBWHP, Avery cofounded the Gainesville Women’s Health Center and BIRTHPLACE, an alternative birthing center in Gainesville, FL, and she was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1989.

One of her initiatives included the production of the film On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other (1987), a pioneering documentary featuring two generations of African American women sharing their experiences on sex, menstruation, love, and communication. The Byllye Avery Collection houses a donated final print of On Becoming a Woman, as well as audio and visual outtakes and work prints from the film’s production.

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