User:Li4301a/sandbox

Byllye Yvonne Avery (born October 20, 1937) is an American health care activist, who has worked to improve the welfare of African-American women for over forty years. One of the founding mothers of reproductive justice, Avery has worked to develop healthcare services and education that address Black women's mental and physical health stressors. She is best known as the founder of the National Black Women's Health Project, the first national organization to specialize in Black women's reproductive health issues. For her work with the NBWHP, she has received the MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship for Social Contribution and the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, among other awards.

Family and Education
Avery was born in Waynesville, Georgia and grew up on a farm in DeLand, Florida. She is the daughter of L. Alyce M. Ingram, a schoolteacher. Her mother graduated of Bethune-Cookman College. Her father,Quitman Reddick, owned a neighborhood store. He was killed when Avery was 14 years old. The oldest of three children, Avery assumed a lot of responsibility from a young age.

In 1995, Avery went off to study psychology at Talladega College, where she earned her BA in 1959. She met her husband, Wesley on her first day at Talladega. The two married in 1960 and had their first child the following year. They had their second child several years later. In 1967, Avery received a fellowship to obtain her master's in special education at the University of Florida. Upon earning her master's degree in 1969, Avery became a special education teacher. After a few years of teaching,she began to work at the Children's Mental Health Unit of her local hospital. Her husband suffered a fatal heart attack months after she began her new job. The death of her husband helped catalyze Avery's commitment to improving health care and health education in the Black community.

Avery met her wife, Ngina Lythcott in 1989 and the two were married in 2005. Lythcott is a public health practitioner and activist.

Activism
In the early 1970s Avery began participating in consciousness-raising groups and legal abortion referral services. In response to the lack of access to abortion and other reproductive health needs that low-income black women faced in her community, Byllye Avery and three of her colleagues Joan Edelson, Judy Levy and Margaret Parrish opened the Gainesville Women’s Health Center (GWHC) and Birthplace, midwifery service birthing center. .The GWHC mission statement was to: “help women solve the crisis-producing situation of unplanned, unwanted pregnancy,” at a low cost. The clinic provided abortions and contraceptive services, facilitated sexuality workshops, and provided other women's health related training and services tailored to Black women, such as sickle cell anemia testing. To help educate women on best health services, the staff created a monthly newsletter called Sage-Femme.

The success of the clinic led Avery to found the National Black Women’s Health Project, now known as the Black Women’s Health Imperative, in 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Black Women's Health Imperative is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to improving health and wellness among Black women. Avery produced On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other (1987), the first documentary film by African-American women sharing their perspectives on menstruation, sex, and love. . Accessed March 20, 2018. In 1990, Avery, along with 15 other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. The organization was created to end the stigma against abortions in the Black community and to make abortions more accessible for Black women.

Avery has written and lectured widely on how race, class and sex impact women's healthcare. She been a visiting fellow at the Harvard University School of Public Health, she has served on the Charter Advisory Committee for the Office of Research on Women's Health of the National Institutes of Health, she has been a health issues advisor for the Kellogg Foundation's International Leadership Program, and she has served as a consultant on women's healthcare in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.

"Article Evaluation" Helen Pitts Douglass
* Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? Everything in the article is relevant to the topic. Nothing distracted me. * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article is neutral. There are no claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position. Nothing especially controversial is presented in the article. However, it is interesting that the article states that she is "best known for being the wife of Frederick Douglass." While it is likely true, in my option, that phrasing diminishes the value of her other accomplishments.

* Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? No. The article was balanced.

* Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article? The last link does not work. The other sources support the claims in the article. The three links that work are primarily focused on Frederick Douglass, and only briefly mention Helen Pitts. * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

No. There are only four citations. Both of the direct quotes are properly cited. The other cited facts come from neutral sources. The first comes from a National Park Service affiliate and the other comes from a manuscript filled at Mount Holyoke College. * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? No information is out of date. However, more information about her work with The Alpha and her other contributions as an educator. Additionally, it is worth noting that she is the cousin of President John Adams. * Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? The talk page is rather small. There were only three modifications (each modification was made for grammar or syntax). * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? The article has not been rated and is not a part of any WikiProjects.

* How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? The article does not delve much into her feminist work. It notes that she was a suffragist, but it does not contain much information about her advocacy. In recalling her abolitionist work, it implicitly illustrates the intersection between racial equity and gender equity.

My name is Lexi Ivers. I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am currently enrolled in my last semester at American University in Washington, DC. I study law and public policy with a focus on child welfare. I am very excited to be enrolled in this Women in Politics course.