Hi, I’m Damary Rodriguez, the Language Access Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. Welcome to this episode of History You Should Know, part of the PA Centered Podcast.
To celebrate and highlight stories of people who advanced the anti-sexual violence movement, particularly Black women, we are sharing a series of shorter episodes so you can learn all about the people and events that contributed to our movement
During today’s episode we’re going to learn about Aishah Shahidah Simmons, a survivor,  filmmaker and according to her website lovewithaccountability.com “an award-winning Black feminist lesbian cultural worker, who, for over 25-years, has examined the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and sexual violence.”
As a warning, this episode contains descriptions of racial and sexual violence. Please take care of yourself while listening.
 Aishah Shahidah Simmons was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of activists who were part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC (pronounced SNICK.) SNCC was one of the most prominent groups during the Civil Rights era as they staged sit-ins, boycotts, and protests. 
Aishah went on to attend Swarthmore College and then transferred to Temple University. Simmons ended up leaving Temple after she was raped while studying abroad. 
After withdrawing from Temple, Aishah spent some time with her father and traveling. Aishah eventually  went to be with her mother and it was during this time that Simmons met the filmmaker Toni Cade Bambara and became her protege.  
Under Bambara’s guidance at Scribe Video Center, Aishah released her first short film titled Silence...Broken in 1993. Silence broken was about an African American lesbian and it addressed silence around racism, sexism and homophobia. The film is dedicated to the memory of Audre Lorde.  A few years later Aishah released In My Father’s House in 1996 which was focused issues of race, gender, homophobia, rape, reproductive justice, and misogyny. Simmons wrote, directed, and produced both films. 
Aishah went on to create the widely acclaimed film No! The Rape Documentary. Released in 2006 after 12 years of work, No! focuses on intra-racial rape, accountability, and healing in Black communities. Aishah has said “What’s funny is that initially, I didn’t think it had anything to do with me as a rape survivor. I thought I just wanted to help other women.” 
Aishah’s own healing journey as a survivor of incest led her to create Love WITH Accountability. Aishah shared in an interview: “I started in January 2015, when I was in my 40s, demanding conversations with my parents about this. I started signing my emails, “Love WITH accountability.” That’s where this comes out of: What I was saying is, I love you all, and I know you love me, but you all have to be accountable for the ways in which you did not protect me.” 
From lovewithaccountabilty.com: The project, which centers Black survivors, focuses on radical healing and accountability and explores how we can disrupt and end the inhumane child sexual abuse pandemic, humanely. it also examines how the silence around child sexual abuse in the familial institution plays a direct role in creating a culture of sexual violence in all other institutions-- religious, academic, activist, political and professional. Survivor-centered healing and accountability without relying on policing and prisons is love and radical justice.
The project began in 2016 by gathering an intergenerational group of twenty-nine diasporic Black cisgender women, gender non-conforming people, trans and cisgender men to join her on The Feminist Wire to explore what “love WITH accountability” looks like in the context of child sexual abuse. The group included survivors, advocates, and Aishah's mother, who wrote publicly for the first time acknowledging what happened to Aishah and the three-decades-long cover up
In 2019, Aishah went on to release the anthology love WITH accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse which contains 44 stories from Black survivors of child sexual abuse. 
In addition to releasing the anthology, Simmons organized #FromNO2Love?: a Black Feminist Centered Forum on Disrupting Sexual Violence that was held in Philadelphia, in fall 2019. This brought together Survivors, scholars, cultural workers, & activists from the US & abroad. Videos of the event are available in the links shared with the podcast. 
To keep up with Aishah’s work, you can follow her on social media @AfroLez.
Thanks for listening to this episode of History You Should Know, part of the PA Centered Podcast. To learn more about Aishah Shahidah Simmons, check out the resources shared in the episode description. To learn more about the history of the anti-sexual violence movement, check out PCAR’s free History and Philosphy eLearning course at campus.nsvrc.org.