THE
ADVOCATE

For more than two decades, Rev. Cherisse Scott has been a transformative force in the Sexual & Reproductive Justice movement, reshaping advocacy across the Southeast and the nation. Her leadership was forged through lived experience: as a client seeking reproductive healthcare from a predatory pregnancy counseling clinic, where she confronted firsthand the systemic deception and barriers to care that disproportionately harm and kill Black women and girls. Rather than retreating in shame, she transformed that moment into her life’s work.

 

In 2005, Rev. Scott entered the reproductive justice movement in Chicago, Illinois—an experience that laid out the foundation for her nationally recognized body of work grounded in truth-telling, education, culture change, and power-building.

 

In 2011, at the request of her late mother, Mrs. Pearl Williams, Rev. Scott founded SisterReach, Inc. in Memphis, Tennessee. Inspired by her mother’s lived experiences while a single parent navigating systemic inequities, she built what is now one of the nation’s leading sexual & reproductive justice organizations—and the first of its kind in Tennessee. Under her leadership, SisterReach has transformed the culture of care, advocacy, and support across reproductive health and rights, public health, inter-faith, and academic spaces in Tennessee and beyond.

 

Rev. Scott’s work spans research, education, advocacy, and cultural intervention. She has led groundbreaking research on comprehensive reproductive and sexual health education access for Tennessee youth and on the criminalization of marginalized women navigating substance use disorder. Under her leadership, SisterReach launched a counter-billboard campaign in Memphis challenging anti-abortion messaging and has developed the Faith & Advocacy Training Curriculum and Workshop Intensive, equipping clergy, laity and social justice leaders with tools for messaging, analysis, and advocacy through a sexual & reproductive justice lens.

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In 2016, Rev. Scott addressed the United Nations on the impact of Tennessee’s fetal assault law, amplifying the voices of women criminalized for substance use. In 2019, her testimony before the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee on the dangers of a six-week abortion ban underscored her unwavering commitment to confronting policy shaped by Christian Nationalism. 

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Her leadership and analysis have been featured in O Magazine, honored by Essence as part of the Woke 100, and has appeared in several documentaries including PERSONHOOD: Policing Pregnant Women in America. She is also a contributing voice in Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World, Abortion and Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide for Resistance, and Liberating Abortion, and Abortion and Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide for Resistance. Her work has been published in articles, interviews, documentaries, and the American Public Health Association Journal.

 

An ordained minister of nearly 30 years, a mother, independent artist, and nationally sought-after speaker, Rev. Scott bridges Black liberation theology, womanist hermeneutics, African spirituality, Black feminist theory, lived experience, and community organizing with rare clarity and conviction. 

Rev. Cherisse Scott does not simply advocate for justice—she builds the infrastructure that makes justice possible.