Maxine Waters reclaims her time on the Dec/Jan cover of Essence

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Maxine Waters has been fighting for justice for the past 40 years, most recently going viral for her “reclaiming my time” line, which has become a rallying cry for activists everywhere and was recently the theme of the the Women’s March Convention in Detroit.

And now, she’s on the cover of Essence‘s Dec/Jan issue. 

Before she became “Auntie Maxine” for millennials, her words exalted on memes and online, she was working against South African apartheid through divestment and creating the Minority AIDS Initiative in 1998.

“It’s [the] regular order of business,” she told Angela Rye in her Essence interview. “I think it was important for me to let him know that he couldn’t get away with that.”

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“One of the things I discovered a long time ago was that I make people uncomfortable and that my advocacy goes beyond what politicians normally do,” she said. “I have a strong sense of what’s fair and what’s not fair, and for vulnerable people who are being taken advantage of, or who are being bullied or intimidated, I tend to want to be protective or to fight for them.”

When asked about her legacy, Waters had one thing to say: “I want to be remembered as a courageous fighter.”