In the Feminist Fast Lane: A Profile of Loretta Ross.

• Author: Washington, Laura S.
• Position: Essay

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If Loretta Ross did not exist, the Left would have to invent her. Fortunately, she is not a figment of the progressive imagination. This unapologetic black feminist and civil rights activist keeps on stepping on, despite adversity, and accomplishes the extraordinary.

Ross's latest step is to act as national coordinator of the Atlanta-based SisterSong, an influential women's collective that crusades for reproductive rights. The group consists of almost eighty grassroots groups representing women of color who are demanding total control of their bodies.

Ross was in Chi-Town in May to honcho SisterSong's tenth anniversary celebration and a national conference entitled "Let's Talk About Sex." The confab drew more than 1,000 women and girls for an unprecedented pow-wow on topics like sexual violence, HIV/AIDS, and abortion. It was a tribute to Ross's organizing skill.

"She is well loved, feared, and a truth teller," says Beth Richie, a feminist activist and professor in African American Studies and associate dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Richie, who has known Ross for more than twenty-five years, adds: "She travels in the fast lane of feminist politics."

Ross is running at warp speed to promote what she calls a "pro-sex agenda." I catch up with her at a budget hotel room in suburban Chicago. This plus-sized woman warrior, who favors flowing African boubous, insists that females of color, from their teens to twilight years, get three things: the right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to parent children--all on their terms.

"Young people have a human right to have a positive sexuality," she says. "Meaning, yes, young people have the right to use birth control without parental consent, abortion without parental consent."

Even girls at the tender ages of eleven, twelve, thirteen?

Ross laughs heartily, her long, abundant dreadlocks swaying down her back. "There's something mind-boggling about telling a girl she's old enough to be pregnant," she says, "but not old enough to use birth control."

H er early life was no laughing matter. Ross was born in 1953 in Temple, Texas, the sixth of eight children in a churchgoing family. Her mother, a domestic, hailed from a "hog-raising farm family" in central Texas. Her Jamaican-born father was a U.S. Army weapons specialist and drill sergeant.

Like most Army brats, she moved around. Ross excelled at the books, skipping two years in grade...