Contributing Authors

Sarah Williams, BSN
Social Activist and Community Organizer

I am currently a graduate student at Western Kentucky University seeking a Masters in Social Responsibility and Community Sustainability while completing a Nonprofit Administration Certification and a Gender and Women's Studies Certificate. My undergraduate career included extensive Social Studies courses and a Bachelors in Nursing.

As a biracial woman in America, the silencing of the black female voice and contributions to feminism is of key concern in building a collective consciousness of universal sisterhood between white female experience and black female experience. I hope that these blog posts can contribute giving voice to African American and Native American female voices often silenced in the "essential" white feminist historical narrative. The roots of feminism are far more colorful and diverse than "essential" academic agendas of white feminism continues to present and this blog is a small illustration of "The Essential Works Forgotten From Essential Feminism."




Melissa Bond
Teaching Artist

I am also a graduate student at Western Kentucky University, working towards a Masters in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Communities and an additional Gender and Women's Studies Certificate. My undergraduate work was in Theatre Arts and Music. I currently work as a teaching artist in a small rural community.

Growing up, I often heard stories about my great-great grandparents and their life in Elk Valley, Tennessee. He was a white man and she was a Cherokee woman. In 1925 they were murdered, according to my great-aunt, because of their interracial relationship. I can't find death certificates or news articles in my research about this incident: my great-great grandmother was simply erased from history, living only in our family stories. This is the undercurrent to my interest in the invisibility of Native American women in America's whitewashed past. How many other Cherokee women were silenced and erased because of their skin? I hope to honor their history by bringing awareness to the work Native women contributed through the history of feminism. 




Lisa Mohr
Higher Education Professional

I am graduate student at Western Kentucky University pursuing a certificate in Gender and Women's Studies.  I have a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling and in student affairs administration.  My undergraduate degree is in sociology.  I currently work in higher education at a two year college.

Like Sarah and Melissa, I too hope these blog posts can give voice to women who were omitted from the pages of our history books.  My intro sociology professor helped me discover that I am a feminist.  But the courses I took didn't include black authors or black feminists.  For me this course and other courses I have taken in the gender and women's studies program at WKU has impressed upon me the importance of inclusion and ending racism and oppression.  I believe telling their stories is one way I can begin to correct the wrongs Frances Harper talked about.