Dr. Melissa Berry-Woods, , will speak in Cabot Park Village’s Black History Lecture Series on Thursday, September 3 at 3PM in the Classroom of Cabot Park Village (280 Newtonville Avenue, Newtonville).
Dr. Berry-Woods will speak on Black Women and Revolutionary Change in America, 1865–Present: Labor, Voting Rights, Health, Justice, and the Transformation of Democracy. She is Professor of English at Bunker Hill Community College and Founder of Berry Inclusive Consulting. She specializes in belonging,
inclusive pedagogy, and institutional change. Her work examines how Black women’s leadership has shaped educational systems, civic engagement, and pathways toward social transformation.
Cabot Park Village’s Black History Lecture Series is free, open to the public, and organized by Lionel Porter.
Background on Dr. Berry-Woods’s presentation:
This presentation examines the central role of Black women in driving revolutionary change across major U.S. social movements from Reconstruction to the present. It highlights leadership in labor organizing, voting rights, criminal justice reform, healthcare access, economic justice, and environmental justice. Through historical and contemporary case studies—from the Atlanta washerwomen’s strike and Ida B. Wells’s anti-lynching campaigns to the welfare rights movement, reproductive justice framework, environmental justice activism, and the founding of Black Lives Matter. The session demonstrates how Black women reshaped public policy, democratic participation, and social institutions.
This session broadens the narratives of Women’s History Month by centering Black women as architects of democratic transformation. It provides an intersectional framework that connects past movements to current struggles for voting rights, educational equity, and social justice.