EWOCC (HER)STORY
EWOCC is recognized to be one of the longest-running conferences in the nation that addresses the needs and concerns of womxn* of color. The conference has brought together cutting-edge womxn of color activists such as Angela Davis, Elaine Brown, Cherrie Moraga, Gina Palcado and Chrystos with Bay Area community leaders and academics (especially students) to discuss and strategize ways of impacting the current issues facing womxn of color.
EWOCC was founded in 1985 by a group of undergraduate students as their semester project for a DE-Cal (Democratic Education at Cal) class. The project, entitled “Women of Color in the United States,” received an overwhelmingly positive response, and students decided to organize another event with the help of the Graduate Assembly (GA), Berkeley’s graduate student government.
EWOCC was one of the first conferences to present womxn of color with an opportunity to address the racial, class, and gender issues facing Indigenous, African American, Asian American, and Chicanx/Latinx womxn.
*EWOCC uses womxn to describe all who experience life through the lens of womxn in body, spirit, identity past, present, future and fluid
At the 38th annual EWOCC in 2023, EWOCC was recognized and awarded the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition by the US Representative for California, Barbara Lee.
