Today we’d like to introduce you to Cherisse Scott. Them and their team share their story with us below:
At the time of seeking reproductive healthcare, Ms. Scott was misled and misinformed by a crisis pregnancy center posing as an abortion clinic. The trauma of this experience allowed her to see first-hand how many Black and other disenfranchised women and girls are manipulated & misinformed and need unhindered access to comprehensive reproductive and sexual health education, and social, and medical support to make knowledgeable decisions about their reproductive and sexual health. Recognizing how a woman’s life can positively change when she is empowered with access and information about her reproductive and sexual health, Ms. Scott began advocating for reproductive and sexual health and justice in 2005. In 2011, she relocated from Chicago, IL to Memphis, TN, and founded SisterReach on October 19 at the request of her dearly departed mother, Pearl Williams.
Currently, SisterReach is the only Reproductive Justice organization in Tennessee. But the impact and culture shift leadership of SisterReach has transformed the work, lens, and approach of all TN advocates in the reproductive health and rights space, and those adjacent to their work. With the visionary support of her mother and grandmother, the work of SisterReach now reaches the state, regional, national, and international levels. In the fall of 2022, SisterReach announced the opening of its second location of SisterReach in Chicago, IL. Again, Ms. Scott’s visionary leadership met the challenge of realigning, redefining, and reimagining reproductive justice in a post-Roe America.
Cherisse is a highly sought public speaker on Reproductive Justice and other human rights issues. She diligently works with state and national partners to bring awareness and connect the intersections of human rights injustices experienced by vulnerable people across the southeast, the Midwest, and nationally.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Absolutely not. There have been several challenges along the way. Living and working in the south has been one of the greatest issues due to the socialization and impact of Christian Nationalism and patriarchy. Racism and gender discrimination as a Black woman trying to change my life and that of my family, neighbors, and community have been exceptional hurdles to navigate. I ran SisterReach for the first 3.5 years with a sum total of $29,500 (3k yr one, 1500 yr two, and 25k yr three). I worked a part-time job and relied on food stamps ($199 p/month) to feed me and my son. In the last 10 1/2 years, we have been able to build funding partnerships and independent donors.
But SisterReach is still among the lowest funded organizations in our movement, yet doing so much culture shifting, movement building, and qualitative work that our mainstream movement partners and adjacent movements benefit from. I would be remiss if I didn’t add the level of co-optation and tokenization that is married to our sincere attempts at collaboration and investment. If our budget matched our sacrifice and the impact of our work, we’d have enough to be a foundation or even a national organization. Our impact is most definitely national. I am personally tired of fighting whiteness within and outside of movement space. It deters everything.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Before I served in this movement, I was working as a professional singer, songwriter, and actress. I have 2 albums and a new EP I released this July entitled, “Who I Am.” I am an independent artist and have been working professionally as an artist for over 20 years. I have worked as a vocal coach and am classically trained. I am most proud of being able to hear and appreciate my own voice amid so many – both in my craft and my activism; in this hateful world run by capitalist greed.
What sets me apart from others is my compassion. I know what it means to be the people I serve, to be the listener of the lyrics and music I write. I know what it means to not have and be afraid of losing, lose and be afraid of not getting again. I am the people I serve, and it is out of my own lived experiences, values, and convictions that I lead my organization, parent my son, care for my family, and love myself.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love the rich Black history of Memphis. I am a Detroit native who moved here in the mid-’80s with my mom to Orange Mound where some of our relatives lived. My mom’s side of the family is from Olive Branch, MS, and Bailey’s Station (Collierville). Some of them moved to the more urban city life of Memphis, which includes Orange Mound, while others migrated north to Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, or as far west as Los Angeles.
Black people in Orange Mound were and still are very proud, caring, and resilient people. It was there that my then single mother was loved on and cared for with her two small children by my late great uncle Walter and Aunt Betty, who owned the ‘filling station’ at Park & Pendleton. It was Ms. Dorothy at the former Dorothy’s Beauty Salon, who would do our hair, and sometimes on credit so that our mom and us would be presentable for work, church, and school. Ms. Dorothy was among my mother’s closest friends. It was at Deadrick and David that my little cousin Tyeisha lost her life while crossing the street and was hit by a car. There is a stop sign at that intersection that was not there because of that tragic incident. It was in the corner store on Park at David, where I would always play the Pac-Man machine, and happened to be playing it the day it was announced on WDIA that Marvin Gaye had been killed by his father. I wept as well as the cashier that day. It was at Smith’s Sundry, owned by my mom’s old boss, Jimmy C, where I learned that people could get food on credit and pay when they got their checks or stamps. Jimmy C helped us a lot in those days because my mom was starting over in a new place, without a lot of money and community was paramount to helping us make it. Orange Mound people took care of each other. That is what I love most about Memphis.
But if I could say a least liked thing about Memphis… it would be Black fear. It has cost our city everything to be socialized by White Christian Nationalism. Church culture informs so much now, especially when the values reflect that of white fear, racism, misogyny, classism, and anti-Blackness. We have been forced to erase so much of who we are just to live a peaceful semblance of life in a city where we are the majority. But our power is almost non-existent. I am not fully sure what the murder of Dr. King did to the elders of our city. But it seems like, at some point, we made a decision to survive, not thrive. During the administration of Mayor Herenton, I think we tried to reclaim our city as our own. But somewhere along the way, we lost it again. Maybe we never had it, but we believed we were on a positive trajectory when Herenton was in charge. Our children were learning more and graduating when he was superintendent. Our parents were buying homes and keeping jobs. Our neighborhoods weren’t plagued by violence and such abject poverty.
The Memphis I left as a teenager, is not the Memphis I returned to as a woman to serve and live. My generation, Gen X and Millennials are mostly in charge now or at least trying to be. We are fed up. But we are also not on the same page working as a unit. Our division is our weakness. But I have faith in us. Black women are stepping into a level of power I am not sure the city has seen like this or is ready for. But we so desperately need a Black woman’s and mother’s touch. We need that nurturing love to restore us once more. We need Black men too, but not like we have worked together in the past. Our work ahead requires equity and respect for the assets we all bring. Christian Nationalism must be dismantled as a thought process to achieve this.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sisterreach-tn.org and www.cherissescott.com
- Instagram: @SisterReach
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SisterReach
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sisterreach?lang=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9MUzhsvssNPbtt7t-FRZwA?app=desktop
