The Black Women’s Truth And Reconciliation Commission On Sexual Assault
Archival Information
BOOK WITH US:
Institute for Gender and Cultural Competency (IGCC)
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
Agunda Okeyo
Author, Writer, Activist,
Women's Media Center, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Indiewire
Alicia Garza
Activist, Speaker, Organizer, Founder
#BlackLives Matter
Alisa Del Tufo
Activist, Oral Historian, Founder
Threshold Collaborative
Amrita Kapur
Senior Associate, Gender Justice Program
The International Center for Transitional Justice
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Black Feminist Scholar, Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s
Studies and English at Spelman College
Ejim Dike
Executive Director
U.S. Human Rights Network
Jamia Wilson
Movement Builder, Storyteller, and Feminist Activist
Executive Director, Women's Media Center
Loretta Ross
Human Rights and Reproductive Justice Advocate, Co-founder and 2005-2012 National
Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective
Lynn Rosenthal
Vice President for Strategic Partnerships at the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Former White House Advisor on Violence Against Women
Monika Johnson-Hostler
Executive Director, NC Coalition Against Sexual Assault
and National Alliance to End Sexual Violence
Netsanet Tesfay
Consultant, International Labor Organization
and International Organization for Migration
Quentin Walcott
Movement Maker, Anti-Vilence Activist, Co-Executive Director
CONNECT, NYC
Ruby Sales
Civil Rights Activist, Writer, Mobilizer, Founder, Spirit House
Stephanie Colon
Community Organizer, Anti-Oppression Activist, Poet and Artist
Farah Tanis
TRC Chair, Co-Founder, Black Women's Blueprint and Museum of Women's Resistance
WHO WAS INVOLVED
Our Co-Conveners
Our Panelists
Our Senior Advisors
Our Host Committee
Our Board of Directors
The 2016 Digital Reckoning Campaign
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.