Byllye Yvonne Avery is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 health care

Health care

Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...

 activist, who has worked to improve the welfare of African-American women by creating the National Black Women's Health Project

National Black Women's Health Project

National Black Women’s Health Project was legally formed in 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia out of an expressed need to address the health and reproductive rights of African American Women. NBWHP was principally founded by Byllye Avery...

 in 1981. She has received the MacArthur Foundation

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...

's Fellowship for Social Contribution and the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care from the Institute of Medicine

Institute of Medicine

The Institute of Medicine is a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970, under the congressional charter of the National Academy of Sciences...

 of the National Academy of Science, among other awards.

Avery was born in DeLand, Florida

DeLand, Florida

DeLand is the county seat of Volusia County, Florida. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city's population to be 24,375. It is part of the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 436,575 in 2006...

 and studied psychology at Talledega College, earning her MA

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 degree from the University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

 in 1969. In 1995 Avery received a L.H.D. from Bates College

Bates College

Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the nation in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists...

.

Avery produced a documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 which features African-American women and their daughters talking about menstruation

Menstruation

Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...

, sex and love, entitled On Becoming a Woman: Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other (1987).