Tristan Williams
Sally Rose is a fighter. As a musician, they front the defiant rock band Shagwüf. As an activist, they’re a vocal supporter of marginalized communities.
They’re also, like, an actual fighter.
In 2019, Rose fused their love of martial arts and feminism into Fight Like a Grrrl Club, a nonprofit organization offering free self-defense workshops in Charlottesville and beyond. Inspired by the 2013 disappearance of Alexis Tiara Murphy in Nelson County, Rose and martial arts expert Joshua Copson embarked on the project just two years after the 2017 Unite the Right Rally and just as COVID-19 began springing up around them.
The idea was that self-defense could be more than just fighting back against assailants. It could be empowering for people who felt powerless.
Seven years after its founding, the club’s hosted 58 workshops in nine cities for at least 830 attendees. “We are still going strong!” Rose says. “We’re hyper-aware that violence is prevalent.”
Rose thinks F.L.A.G.’s message is as important now as it’s ever been. In its seven years of existence, the club has doubled the size of its board and is now training new instructors to offer more programming, including for verbal de-escalation and safety planning. The effort has been helped by multiple grants and countless grassroots donations.
