BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL

 Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall is a trailblazing Black feminist scholar, whose passion for the many communities she encompasses is evident in her work and friendships she has built over the last 55 years . She is the visionary architect of The Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College, the first for an HBCU. Since its founding in 1981, she has served as the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies, exposing her students and the broader public to the intellectual contributions of Black feminists throughout history. 

At the age of sixteen, Dr. Guy-Sheftall began her matriculation at Spelman College where she majored in English and minored in secondary education. Upon graduating with honors, she attended Wellesley College for a fifth year of study. In 1968, she began pursuing her Master’s Degree in English at Atlanta University. A year later Dr. Guy-Sheftall began teaching at Alabama State University in the Department of English. But it was her return to Spelman in 1971 that ignited her true mission— to disrupt the silences surrounding Black women’s interconnected experiences. Within the traditional confines of Spelman that had once educated her, she has pushed boundaries, demanded space for Black feminist thought, and laid the foundation for future generations of radical scholarship.