The theme for Black History Month 2021 has asked us to stop and consider rest as a place for liberation. Extending the theme, in March the Women’s Center will explore our past, present and future as we begin to think about ourselves as sites for revolution.

The Women’s Center presents for Women’s Herstory Month 2021, Our Voices, Our Bodies, Our Stories: The Revolution Within Us. Throughout the month of March, the Women’s Center will explore the relationships between history and our personal experiences. We will take a journey to interrogate how we are shaped by our environments (our homes, locations, communities, relationships, politics and culture) and how we can use these experiences to understand our role in shaping change. 

The central theme for this year’s Women’s Herstory Month was inspired by our spring book club read, Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward.  Ward’s novel, an exploration of family and history, leads us to dig deep and question how the past guides who we are as individuals as well as a community.  Throughout February, we were challenged to think about rest as necessary for pleasure, joy and resistance.  In March, we will continue this discussion through an internal interrogation of self and identity, and what has shaped our understanding of ourselves now and into the future.

Throughout the month, the Women’s Center will offer programming that will follow the same themes to help us grapple with our place in society, our families and the revolution. A main feature for this month will be the combined Black History Month and Women’s Herstory Month keynote, “An Emergent Conversation: Rest, Revolution, and Liberation,” featuring Yaba Blay, Ph.D. (#professionalblackgirl), Natalie Bullock-Brown, of NC State’s Interdisciplinary Studies, and student scholars from the Campus Community Centers.  We hope you will join us on March 2, 2021 from 7 p.m – 8:30 p.m. for a conversation that will weave discussions on “the work,” how to foreground our own joy as we take action, reflections on the regularity of revolution and exploring what it means to act for liberation. To register, visit go.ncsu.edu/whm.   

We believe that the revolution — how we disrupt systemic oppression — is always within us, but we need to understand our histories to understand how we can bring our revolution to the forefront. As we root ourselves, our experiences and the spaces we occupy, we have an opportunity to build a sustainable revolution. We hope that you will join us.

• Is your department, unit or organization planning events for Women’s Herstory Month? We would love to include those opportunities as part of our calendar.  Be sure to list your events on the University Calendar and tag #WHM21. View all opportunities for Women’s Herstory month at go.ncsu.edu/whm.

Kali Fillhart (she/her/hers) is a facilitator for The Movement Peer Educators with the NC State Women’s Center.