Wendy Schwartz

Wendy Schwartz is a complex force. She embodies inconvenient truths, navigating the sharp edges of a history that ties together the enslaver and the enslaved. There’s a saltiness to her—a short fuse, a readiness to push back against the world’s attempts to define her. Her life has been a series of confrontations with those who would try to box her in, but she remains steadfast, insisting on writing her own story. Her tattoos speak volumes: “I am a story” and “Obstinate, headstrong girl,” declarations of a self that refuses to be shaped by anyone else’s expectations. Rooted in a civil rights legacy, she carries the strength of her ancestors, taught by her grandfather to see their history not as a burden but as a source of power. Wendy is a woman who won’t let others tell her who she is—she is, and always will be, the author of her own narrative.