On June 24, 1983, Byllye Avery welcomed busloads of Black women to the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta. The women had traveled from Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania — even as far away as California — for a three-day event billed as the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues. But more than addressing specific illnesses, the conference encouraged Black women to share information and consider how oppression affected their interactions with the health system. Ms. Avery decided to organize the conference when she was researching a paper on Black women’s health. Black women had disproportionately high rates of disease across a swath of ills — hypertension, diabetes, cervical cancer, to name a few.

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Persons: Byllye Avery, busloads, Black, Lillie P, Allen, Avery Organizations: Spelman College, First National Conference, Black Locations: Atlanta, Mississippi , New York , Pennsylvania, California