A proponent of reproductive justice, Avery has worked to develop healthcare services and education that address black women's mental and physical health stressors.
[1] In 1967, Avery received a fellowship to obtain her master's in special education at the University of Florida Gainesville.
In the early 1970s Avery began participating in consciousness-raising groups and legal abortion referral services.
In response to the lack of access to abortion and other reproductive health needs that low-income Black women faced in her community, Avery and her colleagues Joan Edelson, Judy Levy, and Margaret Parrish opened the Gainesville Women's Health Center (GWHC) in 1974.
[1] The GWHC mission statement was to "help women solve the crisis-producing situation of unplanned, unwanted pregnancy", at a low cost.
To help educate women on best health services, the staff created a monthly newsletter called Sage-Femme.
As part of this project, Avery planned The Conference of Black Women's Health Issues which was held at Spelman College in June 1983.
By 1991, the NBWHP had chapters in twenty-five states and had expanded its reach to work with women in Belize, Jamaica, South Africa, Nigeria, and Brazil.
[12][1] Along with prominent African-American leaders such as Shirley Chisholm, Maxine Waters, Dorothy Height, and Faye Wattleton, issued and signed a public statement, "We Remember: African American Women for Reproductive Freedom", in 1989.
The statement connected racism, poverty, and violence to negative reproductive health outcomes for African American women.