The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy

2023 Fellow

Laurie Bertram Roberts: Inaugural Carrie Buck Distinguished Fellow

Announcing Laurie Bertram Roberts as the Inaugural Carrie Buck Fellow

The Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University is thrilled to have had Laurie Bertram Roberts as our inaugural Carrie Buck Distinguished Fellow. The Carrie Buck Distinguished Fellowship, funded by the Ford Foundation, is awarded to activists, scholars, and community organizers with disabilities whose work draws national attention to systemic ableism in reproductive health policy. Each year, our community led Advisory Board will select the distinguished fellow.

Laurie Bertram Roberts (she/they) is a low income, black, queer, disabled grassroots reproductive justice activist, freelance writer, doula, aspiring midwife, and mother. She is the co-founder and current Executive Director of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, Mississippi's only reproductive justice organization that provides direct funding and practical support for abortion access, emergency contraception, birth control, community- based sex education, parenting, and no strings/stigma pregnancy support regardless of pregnancy outcome.

A conversation with Carrie Buck Distinguished Fellow, Laurie Bertram Roberts and Rebecca Cokley, which was held on March 29, 2023:

Ms. Bertram Roberts' work is firmly centered in reproductive justice, anti-racism, and decolonization of everyday spaces as well as movement space. She has been protesting, advocating, and engaging in social justice and political work since her teens. She was previously the regional director and national board representative for the Mid-South region of the National Organization for Women and president of the Mississippi National Organization for Women. She has appeared in many local, national and international media outlets discussing abortion access, birth justice, LGBTQ and gender justice issues in Mississippi, the US South and nationwide. When not writing or dismantling the patriarchy she is likely spending time with her chosen family, eight kids, and two-year-old grandbaby, doing something black and geeky.