Sylvia (Laini) Abernathy was an American artist and activist. She was an important figure in Chicago's Black arts movement, often working in collaboration with her husband, photographer Fundi Abernathy.

Abernathy studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology. As a young designer, she was commissioned by Delmar Records to design album covers for jazz records, some of which featured Fundi's photographs. Abernathy's designs typically worked with Art Deco-inspired typefaces and vibrant color block patterns. She was working during a time when few African Americans held positions of creative authority on the visual side of the Black jazz movement—jazz album design.

In 1967 she joined the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), promoting art, literature and music with a message of Black liberation and pride. Abernathy designed the layout of the Wall of Respect, a street mural that featured African American leaders. After changing her name to the Africanized Laini, she designed the 1970 experimental photo book In Our Terribleness, featuring poetry by Amiri Baraka and images by her husband, Fundi. 

She received little mainstream recognition, although her work helped to pioneer the avant-garde visual aesthetic now inseparably linked with 1960s experimental jazz music.

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