Cheryl Fabio was raised in East Oakland California. Her mother, Sarah Fabio, sent her to Nashville, Tennessee in 1967 to attend Fisk University. Her B.A. in Sociology provided the context, and photography the tool, that got Fabio into Stanford’s MA documentary film program. In 1976, Fabio won Best Documentary at the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame; her film “Rainbow Black: Poet Sarah Webster Fabio” was her thesis project. Cheryl taught in elementary schools and Bay Area colleges before becoming the manager of EATV City College of San Francisco and then, the OperaWons Manager for KTOP TV, the City of Oakland. In 2009, she earned a JD from John F. Kennedy University and settled into her current role as Executive Director at the Sarah Webster Fabio Center for Social Justice, a nonprofit that applies the arts to social change.

Fabio continues to produce and direct films. Her current project is a look at housing insecurity in Alameda County and its impact on children. Fabio is the mother of two and the grandmother to four.