It’s Women’s History Month! Each Wednesday this March, we are honoring remarkable women throughout history who made their mark in the healthcare field and beyond by highlighting their accomplishments and their stories.
Byllye Y. Avery was born in Waynesville Georgia, but relocated to DeLand Florida with her mother at the mere age of 9. She attended and graduated from a segregated high school in 1955 before attending Talladega College, the oldest historically Black college in Alabama.
Before long, Avery became the only person in the entire state to be awarded a fellowship to get a master’s degree in special education at the University of Florida Gainesville.
Tragedy struck in 1970 when her 33-year old husband suffered a major heart attack. This, however, served as the catalyst for Avery to begin her work improving the health and lives of the black community. At the time, the health care system had not made it clear how deadly high blood pressure could be, and Avery realized that neither her nor her husband ever learned how to take care of their health and were unaware certain diseases could run in families,
A year later in 1972, she gave her first public lecture on reproductive rights. Not long after, women began to reach out to her and her colleagues about how to access abortion services, propelling them to arrange for several white women to travel to NY to obtain those resources. However, when a young black women reached out around the same time, she was unable to afford travel and ended up dying from a self-induced abortion,
In this 1977 photo, staff members of the Gainesville Women’s Health Center hold an informal conference. From left, Pam Smith, Byllye Avery, Lane Goddard, Jeannette Klein, and Ann Hadley
In 1974, Avery and her colleagues founded the Gainesville Women’s Health Center, which provided first-trimester abortions and well-women GYN care in an area that desperately needed it.
Later, in 1984, she founded the National Black Women’s Health Project – now called the Black Women’s Health Imperative – which, throughout its history, has led national programs in health policy, education, research, and more with a goal of saving and extending the lives of Black women. To this day,the BWHI continues to address these barriers and maintain Byllye Y. Avery’s life’s work and mission.
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