Aishah Shahidah Simmons Biographical Sketch

Aishah Shahidah Simmons | Documentary Filmmaker | Lecturer | Activist Biographaphical Sketch

AishahShahidahSimmons_JulieYarbroughPhotographer Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. She is presently an adjunct faculty member in the Women’s Studies and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Studies program at Temple University where she teaches under/graduate courses, which examine the her/histories and contemporary realities of cisgender women and/or LGBTQ people in all of their diversity. They include Gay and Lesbian Lives (designed the revised undergraduate course), Audre Lorde: The Life and Work of A Silence Breaker (created and designed the new graduate/undergraduate course), and Graduate Introduction to Feminist Studies (designed the revised course). Additional work included moderating and participating on several Temple University sponsored roundtables and panels; personally inviting and hosting a wide range of nationally and internationally renowned scholars, cultural workers, filmmakers and activists who guest lectured in her classes and/or Women’s Studies hosted events: Cornelius Moore, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Ph.D., Tyrone Smith, Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins, M.D., Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Ph.D., Melinda Goodman, Barbara Ransby, Ph.D., Qui Alexander, Michael Simmons, Jennifer S. Leath, Ph.D., Stephanie Gilmore, Ph.D., and Tiona McClodden.

A Commissioner of Black Women’s Blueprint’s (BWB) Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Black Women and Sexual Assault, she co-authored, with BWB’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Farah Tanis and L. Michelle Odom, BWB’s Report on Racial Discrimination and Sexual Violence Against Women of Color, Including Those Identifying as LGBTQ, and the Impact of Inadequate Racial Justice Initiatives and Violence Prevention Policy Implementation in the United States She was also a member of BWB’s 2014 six women delegation that presented at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland during their U.S. CERD Review. Ms. Tanis and Ms. Simmons co-authored the article, Better Off Dead: Black Women Speak to the United Nations CERD Committee, which documents the BWB’s herstoric delegation’s ground breaking work of testifying against state sanctioned and personal violence perpetuated against Black women and Black LGBTQ people in the United States at the United Nations.

During the first half of their spring semester of the 2013-2014 academic year, Ms. Simmons was the Erma Taylor O’Brien Distinguished Visiting Professor at Scripps College The Department of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies hosted her. While in residence, she organized and hosted two campus wide events (The Feminist Wire’s Mediating Feminisms Roundtable on how new media is deployed for feminist change-making; and Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence book reading and signing), participated in Scripps College’s spring 2014 Humanities Institute’s series “Feminism and the Radical Imagination;” screened her work; guest lectured in several courses and events held at Scripps, Pitzer, Pomona Colleges, and Claremont Graduate University.

Ms. Simmons is an Associate Editor of the The Feminist Wire (TFW), which is “an online publication that celebrates a multiplicity of feminist expressions from a variety of writers that span genders, sexualities, professions, races and ethnicities. The mission of TFW is to provide socio-political and cultural critique of anti-feminist, racist, and imperialist politics pervasive in all forms and spaces of private and public lives of individuals globally. TFW seeks to valorize and sustain pro-feminist representations and create alternative frameworks to build a just and equitable society.”

In November 2014, Ms. Simmons co-curated and co-edited, with Heidi R. Lewis, Ph.D., TFW’s thirteen-day forum commemorating Toni Cade Bambara’s 75th birthday anniversary.This herstoric and ground breaking forum was the first on-line celebration of Bambara, an award winning internationally acclaimed Black feminist writer, cultural worker, and organizer. This celebration and collection features over sixty-nine essays, poems, remembrances, videos and testimonials from some of the leading Black writers, scholars, cultural workers, poets, filmmakers and activists in the United States. Ms. Simmons produced and directed TFW’s Feminist We Love video interview with Black feminist writer and women’s health advocate Linda Janet Holmes who is also Toni Cade Bambara’s first biographer. The “Bambara Index” is available through this link: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/11/afterword-toni-cade-bambara/

Eight months prior to the launch of the Bambara forum, Ms. Simmons curated and lead edited TFW’s two-week global forum commemorating Audre Lorde’s 80th birthday anniversary. Similar to the Bambara forum, this herstoric and ground breaking online collection features fifty-nine essays, poems, remembrances, and testimonials from a wide range of established and emerging feminist scholars, activists, artists, and cultural workers based in countries in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Ms. Simmons produced and directed the two TFW Feminists We Love video interviews with Audre Lorde’s daughter Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins, M.D., M.Sc., and Gloria I. Joseph, Ph.D.who was Lorde’s partner in the latter years of her life. The “Lorde Index” is available through this link: http://thefeministwire.com/2014/03/afterword-standing-lordean-shoreline/

In spring 2009, Ms. Simmons was an Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture and Lecturer in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. During her residency, Ms. Simmons created, developed, and taught an undergraduate course entitled, Sisters Outsider: Diasporic African Women Narrative and Documentary Filmmakers. The syllabus from ‘Sisters Outsider’ is one of five syllabi featured in the Resources section of the 341-page Facilitating Campus Climates of Pluralism, Inclusivity, and Progressive Change at HBCU’s. Funded by the Arcus Foundation, this first ever in-depth study on any historically Black college campus was Phase II of Spelman College’s Women’s Research & Resource Center’s Audre Lorde Black Lesbian Feminist Project.

For more than twenty-years, Ms. Simmons has been both motivated and engaged as a cultural worker because she believes each one of us has the birth right to live in a world where oppression and exploitation based on gender, race/ethnicity, national origin/citizenship, sexual orientation, class, and/or religion of anyone is non-existent.

In 1992, she founded AfroLez® Productions, an AfroLez®femcentric multimedia arts company committed to using the moving image, the written and spoken word to address those issues which have a negative impact on marginalized and disenfranchised people.

Coined in 1990 by Ms. Simmons, AfroLez®femcentric defines the culturally conscious role of Black women who identify as Afrocentric, lesbian, and feminist.

For three years she co-produced two monthly public television programs for a PBS affiliate in Philadelphia. Her internationally acclaimed short videos Silence…Broken and In My Father’s House, which were produced in 1993 and 1996, explore the issues of race, gender, homophobia, rape, and misogyny.

An incest and rape survivor, she spent eleven years, seven of which were full time, to produce write, and direct NO! The Rape Documentary. This award-winning, internationally-acclaimed, groundbreaking documentary explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans. NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia.

After a wonderful eight year partnership with California Newsreel, the oldest non-profit social issue documentary center and distributor in the United States, AfroLez® Productions is now the sole distributor of NO!. On February 14, 2006, NO! had her world premiere at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, CA. In September 2006, NO! won the Audience Choice Award and a Juried Award at the San Diego Women Film Festival. NO! also won the juried Best Documentary Award at the 2008 India International Women’s Film Festival. In 2009, NO! was among the invited 50 documentaries and short narrative films from 22 countries, which were featured in the Open Frame Film Festival, which is organized by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PBST) in New Delhi, India. NO! was also included in JustFilms, a new online archive of social justice films that the Ford Foundation has supported over the past 30 years.

NO! has been screened throughout the United States, in South Africa, Canada, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Czech Republic, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Austria, Nepal, Bulgaria, Rwanda, Kenya, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Peru, Colombia, Guadeloupe, Venezuela, Brazil, India, France, England, Haiti, Guam, St. Thomas, Turkey, Malaysia, and Mexico.

Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple says, “If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would save itself it must complete the work this film [NO!] begins.”

Several years after her world premiere in 2006, NO! continues to have an impact across the United States and globally. In fall 2011, Project STOP NOW!, an important Office on Violence Against Women/U.S. Department of Justice (OVW/USDOJ) funded-initiative that focuses on the prevention of violent crimes committed against women at United Negro College Fund (UNCF) member colleges and universities, purchased 26-copies of NO!. This purchase resulted in NO! being used as an anti-rape educational resource/tool on 26 Historically Black College/University campuses in the US. Most recently, at the end of 2012, the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault purchased 30-copies of NO!, 30-copies of Breaking Silences: The Supplemental Video to NO!, and 30-copies of Unveiling the Silences: NO! The Rape Documentary Study Guide. Each set of materials will be distributed to Sexual Assault Centers across the state of Iowa. During this same time period, Ethiopian feminist scholar-activist Dr. Mulumebet Zenebe who teaches at the Institute of Gender Studies (IGS) at Addis Ababa University shared that NO! will be included in their Master of Arts curriculum. As stated on their website, “[t]he IGS is the only institution in Ethiopia that provides post-graduate program study in gender studies. In April 2013, Spelman College’s Women’s Research and Resource Center (WRRC) purchased an additional five copies of NO!, which will be used in their long term work to address and eradicate rape culture on Historically Black Colleges and Universities and beyond. Founded in 1981, by Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, the WRRC has been long-term supporter of NO! The Rape Documentary from conception (1994) to completion (2006) and distribution (present day).

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the recipient of numerous grants, awards, and honors including but not limited to:

2014 Erma O’Brien Distinguished Visiting Professor, Scripps College

2013 Co-Recipient, with Staceyann Chinn, Black Women’s Blueprint’s Revolutionary Women Speaking the Unspeakable Award

2011 NO! included in the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms online archive

2010 Co-Recipient, with Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Ph.D., Scarritt-Bennett Center’s Ann L. Rescovac Courage Award

2010 Artist-in-Residence at Emporia State University

2009 Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

2008 Philadelphia Black Gay Pride Legends Award

2007 International Federation of Black Prides Award

2007 Media Award from the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community

2007 NO! designated as the Featured Event during the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s 2007 National Sexual Assault Awareness Month Campaign

2006 Ford Foundation grant to support the international educational marketing and distribution of NO!

2006 DC Rape Crisis Center’s Visionary Award

2006 National Award for Outstanding Response to and Prevention of Sexual Violence from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center

2005 Inaugural Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation

2005 Artist-in-Residence at Spelman College’s Digital Moving Image Salon

1995-2005 several research and development, production, and post-production grants from the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Valentine Foundation, the Bread and Roses Community Fund, the Gloria Steinem Fund of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, the Open Meadows Fund, the Women’s Way Discretionary Fund, Amnesty International Women’s Human Rights Program, the Funding Exchange, Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Department, Prince George’s County Council, Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Philadelphia Independent Film & Video Association (PIFVA), Cercle des Libres Penseurs des Bruxelles (Belgium), Group du 6 Novembre (France), Amnesty International-French Section, Ufficio Politiche di Genere Della Citta di Torino (Italy), La Casa Per Non Subire Violenza di Bologna (Italy), Azione Gay e Lesbica di Firenze (Italy), Coordinamento Lesbiche Romane (Italy), Casa Internazionale delle Donne (Italy) Arcilesbica Bologna (Italy), Associazione Cuturale Artemisia (Italy), Fuoricamp Lesbian Group (Italy), Circolo Maurice (Italy), Associazione Iroko Onlus (Italy), Associazione Le Bisce d’aqcua (Italy), and Collettive Femministe Libere Tutte (Italy).

2000 Bread and Roses Community Fund’s Waters Award for Intergenerational Activism

1998 NAACP (Philadelphia Chapter) Exemplary Citizen Award

1998 Audre Lorde Legacy Award of the Union Institute Center for Women

1995 Atlantic City Black Film Festival “Filmmaker” Award

1994 Philadelphia Gay Pride Female Grand Marshall

Ms. Simmons is also featured in Tiona McClodden’s (aka tiona.m.) internationally acclaimed, award-winning documentary black./womyn.:conversations with lesbians of African descent.

Ms. Simmons has screened her work, guest lectured, and facilitated workshops and dialogues to educate about, heal from, and work towards ending all forms sexual violence; queer identity from an AfroLez®femcentric perspective; the grassroots process of making social change documentaries; and non-Christocentric spirituality to racially and ethnically diverse audiences at colleges and universities, high schools, conferences, international film festivals, rape crisis centers, battered women shelters, community centers, juvenile correctional facilities, and government sponsored events across the United States and Canada, throughout Italy, in South Africa, France, England, Croatia, Hungary, The Netherlands, Mexico, Kenya, Malaysia, India, and Switzerland.

She is the author of the foreword to the Dear Sister: Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence Anthology (AK Press 2014). Edited by Lisa Factora-Borchers, Dear Sister is an anthology of letters and other works created for survivors of sexual violence from other survivors and allies. It is a collection of hope and strength through words and art.

Feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem writes:

There is nothing on earth more changeful than telling our stories honestly, and listening to the stories of others with an open heart. That’s especially true for survivors of sexualized violence who’ve been silenced by shame. These 50 brave Letters from Survivors of Sexual Violence will open floodgates of memory, expose body-invasion as the most traumatic of crimes, and show victimizers the roots and damage of their acts. I’m very grateful to Lisa Factora-Borchers for editing this book, to Aishah Shahida[h] Simmons whose foreword sets a high bar of honesty, and to all the voices in it. I think you will be, too.

Order your copy of Dear Sister today.

Ms. Simmons is also the author of numerous published essays, some of which have been translated into French and Italian, all of which are featured in anthologies and journals in the United States and internationally including Just Sex: Students Rewrite the Rules on Sex, Violence, Equality & Activism (Jodi Gold and Susan Villari, eds., Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue (C. M. West, Ph.D., Ed. Haworth Press: Binghamton, NY, 2003); INCITE: The Color of Violence (various eds., South End Press, 2006); The Black Scholar (special ‘Black Women’s Activism’ edition – Jennifer Hamer, Ph.D., and Helen Neville, Ph.D., eds., Summer 2006); Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence (Maria Ochoa, Ph.D., & Barbara Ige, Ph.D. eds., Seal Press, 2008); Savoring The Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara (Linda Holmes and Cheryl Wall, eds., Temple University Press, 2007); and WHO SHOULD BE FIRST? Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign (Johnnetta Betsch Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, eds., SUNY Press, 2010); Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti Sexual Violence Movement (Jennifer Patterson, ed., Magnus Press, 2014/2015); and Black Feminist and Womanist Pedagogies: When the Personal is Political and Academic (Gary L. Lemons and Aaronette M. White, eds., SUNY Press, forthcoming).

Ms. Simmons’ cultural work and activism are featured in anthologies, periodicals, and blogs including, but not limited to Ms., ColorLines, The Root.com, Forbes, Crisis, Alternet, Racialicious, Left of Black, The Philadelphia Weekly, In These Times, Peace X Peace and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She has also appeared on local and national radio and television networks including National Public Radio (NPR), Black Entertainment Television(BET), and Pacifica Radio Network.

In addition to her work for The Feminist Wire, she blogs at AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives. She has also written for Ms. magazine’s blog. You can view some of her work on her youtube and vimeo channels. Follow her on twitter at @AfroLez; and connect with her on Facebook.

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Aishah Shahidah Simmons Biographical Sketch

Aishah Shahidah Simmons | Documentary Filmmaker | Lecturer | Activist Biographaphical Sketch

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