Loretta Ross has had many titles — activist, academic, feminist and currently, professor. But her first official title was “volunteer” at the DC Rape Crisis Center, the first rape crisis center in the United States.
“I’m a survivor of incest and childhood sexual assault,” Ross said. “So when I got asked to volunteer [there] in 1978, that’s where I found my activist path, and I’ve been involved in the movement since then.”
When she first started working at the DC Rape Crisis Center, Ross was a respondent for the sexual assault hotline. She was primarily answering calls from people who needed support or information.
“It was about talking to people who called, helping them hook up with services if they wanted to report the rape by going to the hospital or the police,” Ross said. “It was often the case that as we told our stories to each other, we learned more about it.”
As Ross worked at the DC Rape Crisis Center, she continued to learn more about issues of sexual assault and reproductive justice, which spurred her curiosity.
“I think I was surprised by the number of boys and men who were calling our hotline, because I had never conceptualized sexual assault as something that happened to men. I always thought of it as something done by men,” Ross said.
Ross graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Agnes Scott College in 2007. Years later, Marlene Gerber Fried, a friend of Ross’s who was working at Hampshire College at the time, offered her the opportunity to stand in for Gerber while she was on sabbatical. Ross decided to take the job, which prompted the start of her career as a professor.
“I always kind of wished I could become an educator, but I didn’t graduate college until I was 55, so I thought it was such a far-off dream; that I’d never achieve it,” Ross said. “I did my first teaching gig and I haven’t looked back. It was a dream come true.”
Once she began teaching, Ross began to see activism through a different lens as she worked with students. While she enjoys the enthusiasm surrounding activism of younger generations, she also believes there is still room for growth.
“I love the energy that young people bring to activism, and the passion. I just wish that young people understood that it’s gonna take every generation, working together, and every race and every identity group to pull down this oppression,” Ross said. “You just can’t approach it from one perspective or one issue, you have to see it in an intersectional nature. And intergenerational and multiracial one, and so it takes everybody.”
Today, Ross continues her career in education by teaching courses about white supremacy and reproductive justice at Smith College. Throughout her life and all her experiences, the thing that stands out to Ross the most is the lessons she learned from previous generations of activists, who she says supported her unconditionally.
“Don’t give up on people,” Ross said. “Just because you see them in one way doesn’t mean you see the totality of who they are. Don’t give up on people.”
On Mar. 5, Ross will be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame alongside civil rights activist Ruby Bridges and tennis player Serena Williams. The event will be broadcasted on Mar. 24 on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
