Mia Birdsong

Mia Birdsong is a family activist who advocates for the strengthening of communities and the self-determination of low-income people. Birdsong is co-director of Family Story, alongside Nicole Rodgers and was vice president of Family Independence Initiative (FII).

Background As a child, she didn't see herself represented in the world, particularly in the literary world. There was no one of color in the school books that she was reading. This made it difficult to connect with the characters in these stories. Birdsong believed that books like the Nancy Drew series and those written by Judy Blume drew on gender invisibility, but not race. When Birdsong was a senior in high school, she read Richard Wright's Black Boy. She is on the board of directors of the North Oakland Community Charter School and Forward Together.

Birdsong is the Co-Director of Family Story, while also spending time in the publishing industry and worked as a trainer and educator in the youth development and heather education field. Her experience also includes apprenticing as a midwife while also studying and practicing herbal medicine and building houses.