Black Women’s Blueprint's held the 2016 Tribunal of the Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, from April 28-May 1, 2016, as part of the International Decade of People of African Descent at the United Nations. The Truth Commission reflected a continued process five years in the making, involving national grassroots activism, direct service healing practice and participatory action research by Black Women’s Blueprint and survivors across the country on sexual violence as a human rights atrocity against women and girls of African descent past and present, which has never been acknowledged or sufficiently addressed. The Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the first of its kind in the nation to focus on rape and sexual assault against Black women in the United States. Women and girls of African descent, many of whom were denied access and assistance from the criminal justice system, began to organize, realizing their own and collective transformation could not happen without public recognition and acknowledgment of the injustices and harms they had experienced. Out of these early discussions—first in New York City, and later in cities across the country such as Washington D.C., New Orleans, Mississippi, and Chicago—the BWTRC was born. Our Mandates:

Truth. Justice. Healing. Reconciliation.

The Commissioners

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Agunda Okeyo

Author, Writer, Activist, 
Women's Media Center, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Indiewire

 

Alicia Garza

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Activist, Speaker, Organizer, Founder 
#BlackLives Matter

 

Alisa Del Tufo

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Activist, Oral Historian, Founder 
Threshold Collaborative

 

Amrita Kapur

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Senior Associate, Gender Justice Program 
The International Center for Transitional Justice

 

Beverly Guy-Sheftall

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Black Feminist Scholar, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s
Studies and English at Spelman College

 

Ejim Dike

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Executive Director
U.S. Human Rights Network

 

Jamia Wilson

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Movement Builder, Storyteller, and Feminist Activist
Executive Director, Women's Media Center

 

Loretta Ross

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Human Rights and Reproductive Justice Advocate, Co-founder and 2005-2012 National 
Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective

 

Lynn Rosenthal

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Vice President for Strategic Partnerships at the National Domestic Violence Hotline. 
Former White House Advisor on Violence Against Women

 

Monika Johnson-Hostler

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Executive Director, NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault
and National Alliance to End Sexual Violence

 

Netsanet Tesfay

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Consultant, International Labor Organization 
and International Organization for Migration

 

Quentin Walcott

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Movement Maker, Anti-Vilence Activist, Co-Executive Director
CONNECT, NYC

 

Ruby Sales

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Civil Rights Activist, Writer, Mobilizer, Founder, Spirit House

 

Stephanie Colon

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Community Organizer, Anti-Oppression Activist, Poet and Artist

 

Farah Tanis

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TRC Chair, Co-Founder, Black Women's Blueprint and Museum of Women's Resistance

 

The 2016 Digital Reckoning Campaign

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The Digital Reckoning Campaign is a call-and-response digital project grounded in the concept of reconciliation for Black women with Black men, white men, white feminists, and other people of color to acknowledge the ongoing, complicit oppression of Black women. From descendants of slave owners coming to terms with the sins of their ancestors to Black men admitting to remaining silent and not showing up for Black women who continue to be brutalized, Black Women's Blueprint calls for a dynamic dialogue on Black women’s pain and struggles. We hope to feature a myriad of intergenerational voices responding to violence against Black women.