THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Shelley Fernandez
“My whole life has been one of causes.”
National board of NOW, President of San Francisco NOW, Co-founder of La Casa de las Madres in San Francisco. Founder of Our Lady of Guadalupe Health Center. Third World Women’s Movement. Puerto Rican Organization for Women. Founded, along with Keiko Fukuda, the Keiko Fukuda and Shelley Fernandez Studio and Self Defense Foundation for Girls and Women. President of the Keiko Fukuda Judo Foundation.
Interviewed by Mary Jean Collins, VFA Historian, October 2021
Photo 1. Shelley Fernandez, 1975. Photo 2. Keiko Fukuda and Shelley Fernandez (Photos courtesy of Shelley Fernandez).
More About Shelley:
- “Feminist Icon Shelley Fernandez Still Moving Mountains at Age 90,” by Megan Wetherall, The Noe Valley Voice, October 2021
- “Giving Thanks to Shelley Fernandez,” interview by Megan Wetherall, Storycorps, December 2019.
- Keiko Fukuda Judo Foundation website
- “Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful,” a film by Yuriko Gamo Romer
- Select newspaper clippings 1963 – 1977
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, page 145