Black feminism

Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently
valuable, that [Black women's] liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but
because our need as human persons for autonomy."[1]

The Combahee River Collective (1974-1980), a group of black feminists, spoke on how black
women are constantly and simultaneously fighting this ongoing battle of multiple oppression
from all angles. Within the Black Feminisms: Combahee River Collective Statement of 1977, they
spoke on how, “…difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our [black
women’s’] lives they are the most often experienced simultaneously". (Combahee River Collective
Statement, pg. 504). The Combahee River Collective articulated this interlocking system of
oppression based on sexism, heterosexism, racism, and classism due to the lack of basic
human rights provided to black women in comparison to other groups, such as white women. All
of this is crucial to the political beliefs of black feminism due to their difference among other
groups, as they tackle additional struggles don’t necessarily need to fight for. Black feminism is
the fight for recognition as human beings who just want the same treatment and rights as
everyone else. White women fighting for feminism was different from black women fighting for
black feminism, simply because they’re only needing to address one oppression [sexism] versus
an entire range of oppression, like black women. Therefore, the black feminists of the Combahee
River Collective aimed for an inclusive, & not an exclusive, movement because, “The major source
of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or
even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions. We do not have racial, sexual,
heterosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal access to resources
and power that groups who possess any one of these types of privilege have…” (Combahee River
Collective Statement, pg. 505).

Race, gender, and class discrimination are all aspects of the same system of hierarchy, which
bell hooks calls the "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy". Due to their inter-
dependency, they combine to create something more than experiencing racism and sexism
independently. The experience of being a Black woman, then, cannot be grasped in terms of
being Black or of being a woman but must be illuminated via intersectionality,[2] a term coined by
legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. Intersectionality indicates that each identity—being
Black and being female—should be considered both independently and for their interaction
effect, in which intersecting identities deepen, reinforce one another, and potentially lead to
aggravated forms of inequality.[3][4]

A Black feminist lens in the United States was first employed by Black women to make sense of
how white supremacy and patriarchy interacted to inform the particular experiences of enslaved
Black women. Black activists and intellectuals formed organizations such as the National
Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).[5]
Black feminism rose to prominence in the 1960s, as the civil rights movement excluded women
from leadership positions, and the mainstream feminist movement largely focused its agenda
on issues that predominately impacted middle-class White women. From the 1970s to 1980s,
Black feminists formed groups that addressed the role of Black women in Black nationalism, gay
liberation, and second-wave feminism. In the 1990s, the Anita Hill controversy brought Black
feminism into the mainstream. Black feminist theories reached a wider audience in the 2010s as
a result of social-media advocacy.[6]

Proponents of Black feminism argue that Black women are positioned within structures of
power in fundamentally different ways than White women. In the early 21st century, the tag white
feminist gained currency to criticize feminists who avoid issues of intersectionality.[7] Critics of
Black feminism argue that divisions along the lines of race or gender weaken the strength of the
overall feminist and anti-racist movements.[8]

Among the notions that evolved out of the Black feminist movement are Alice Walker's
womanism and historical revisionism with an increased focus on Black women.[9][10] bell hooks,
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, and Patricia Hill Collins have emerged as leading academics
on Black feminism, while Black celebrities have encouraged mainstream discussion of Black
feminism.[11][12]
Early history

18th century

Slavery is the seedbed of Black feminism. This peculiar institution has been the historic
differentiation amongst Black women and other feminist women in the world, being the primary
dominating differentiation between Black women and all women who identify outside of the
Black or Africana Diaspora. The ideology of chattel within the ethics of Slavery and U.S. laws
includes Black women and their bodies which were controlled and experienced gender violence
such as rape. Slave humanity was considered Black humanity within the grand scheme of U.S.
laws regarding Black lives. Black women did not have an identity inside or outside of Slavery as
a result of patriarchy and racism, as the two social ills ultimately created a space and
community to come known as Black feminism. Black women were considered property and not
people, they were the least. The cannon of Black life during Antebellum America would ultimately
craft the minds of White women who would become feminists, as the organizational behavior of
the institution of Slavery includes racism and classism which is a part of the roots and social
foundation of some White feminists as a result of their White heritage. Intersectionality is
embedded within the tapestry of feminist thought, and it is here where Black women and Black
men came to a point in 1869 after being exposed to feminism within the Women's Suffrage
Movement.

The sons and daughters of Slavery include those who would give birth to the concept and
contextualism of Black feminism which challenged the Women's Suffrage Movement. Perhaps
the historic response of an abolitionist within the Women's Suffrage Movement creates the
notion that Frederick Douglas is the first Black male feminist to create agency for the concept of
Black feminism during the Women's Suffrage Movement of 1869. Although Western civilization
and ideologies such as the term coon and nigger created a different world in the United States of
America for West African descendants, the first true wave of feminism embodied ideas against
all Black humanity; Douglas felt this wave; developing a state of mind and strong resistance to
White power and White feminism within his leadership for Black equality. Black lives mattered to
Frederick Douglas, and within all of his public works in history, he labored and travailed for Black
humanity and freedom. The malaise of White thought and White supremacy gave birth to the
daughters of racism who were a part of the Women's Suffrage Movement of 1869. Douglas was
a son of liberation, one who demonstrated Black power by way of advocacy for Black women
within the Women's Suffrage Movement. It was within this movement that a charlatan of equality
by the name of Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered a speech that presented Black women as
inhumane, as her historic speech within the Women's Suffrage Movement honorably described
White women perhaps as elitist, referring to White women in her speech as "the Daughters of
Jefferson",[13] and intentionally describing Black women as daughters of "Sambo" and "black
boot".[14] Appalled and disdain to accept the racist ideas of Stanton, perhaps Frederick Douglas
took his place as a Black male feminist by writing Stanton and asking the question, "What
difference is there between the daughters of Jefferson and other daughters"?[15]

Black feminism has been around since the time of slavery. If defined as a way that Black women
have sought to understand their position within systems of oppression, then this is exemplified
in Sojourner Truth's famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?", which was delivered in 1851 at the
Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. Truth addressed how the issues being discussed at the
convention were issues that primarily impacted White women.[16]

The book, A Voice from the South (1892), by Anna Julia Cooper has been credited as one of the
first pieces of literature that expresses a Black feminist perspective.[5] Cooper's contemporary,
writer and activist, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, proposed "some of the most important
questions of race, gender, and the work of Reconstruction in the nineteenth century". According
to Harper, White women needed suffrage for education, but "Black women need the vote, not as
a form of education, but as a form of protection".[17] In the 1890s Ida B. Wells, a politically driven
activist, became famous for seeking to find the truth about the lynching of Black men, a subject
that many White feminists avoided.[18]

1900 to 1960

In the post slavery period, Black female intellectuals and activists, such as Sojourner Truth, Anna
Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and Frances Harper, set in motion the principles
that would become the basis for Black feminism.[19] These women accomplished things that
were previously unheard of for Black women, such as giving public lectures, fighting for suffrage,
and aiding those in need of help following Reconstruction. However, fissures soon developed
between White feminists, even those who had been active in abolition, and pioneering Black
feminists.

Suffrage was one of the early areas of a schism between White and Black feminists. Though
feminism as a movement was at a rise in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Black women were
often left behind and disregarded by the White feminists of this movement. This, however, did
not stop the Black feminists, who would eventually create a separate path for themselves
fighting for the cause. Out of this, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC)
founded in 1904, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
founded in 1909, and the National Association of Wage Earners founded in 1921, were born.[20]

Black writers of the early 1900s who undertook feminist themes included educator and activist
Mary Church Terrell and Zora Neale Hurston. In her autobiography A Colored Woman in a White
World (1940), Terrell chronicled her experiences with both racism and sexism.[21] Hurston's
substantial number of published works include the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
featuring a strong female protagonist in Janie Crawford.[22]

Although the decades between the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution (1920) and the 1960s are not included among the "wave" periods of feminism, this
was a particularly important moment in the development of Black feminist activism.[17] During
this period, a few radical Black female activists joined the Communist party or focused on union
activism. Although they did not all identify as feminists, their theorizing included important
works that are the foundation for theories of intersectionality—integrating race, gender, and
class. In 1940, for example, Esther V. Cooper (married name Esther Cooper Jackson) wrote a
M.A. thesis called "The Negro Woman Domestic Worker in Relation to Trade Unionism".[23] And in
1949, Claudia Jones wrote "An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman".[24]

Other feminist activism and organizing happened around different cases of racial and sexual
violence. For example, Esther Cooper and Rosa Parks organized to help Recy Taylor. In 1944,
Taylor was the victim of a gang rape; Parks and Cooper attempted to bring the culprits to
justice.[25] Black feminist activists focused on other similar cases, such as the 1949 arrest of
and then death sentence issued to Rosa Lee Ingram, a victim of sexual violence. Defenders of
Ingram included the famous Black feminist Mary Church Terrell, who was an octogenarian at the
time.[26]

Despite often initiating protests, organizing and fundraising events, communicating to the
community, and formulating strategies, women in positions of leadership are often overlooked
by historians covering the civil rights movement, which began in earnest in the 1950s.[27] Many
events, such as the Montgomery bus boycott, were made successful due to the women who
distributed information. During the Montgomery bus boycott, 35,000 leaflets were
mimeographed and handed out after Rosa Parks’ arrest. Georgia Gilmore, after being fired from
her job as a cook and black-listed from other jobs in Montgomery due to her contributions to the
boycott, organized the Club From Nowhere, a group that cooked and baked to fund the effort.[28]

Later history
1960s and 1970s

Civil rights movement

In the second half of the 20th century, Black feminism as a political and social movement grew
out of Black women's feelings of discontent with both the civil rights movement and the feminist
movement of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the foundational statements of left-wing Black
feminism is "An Argument for Black Women's Liberation as a Revolutionary Force", authored by
Mary Ann Weathers and published in February 1969 in Cell 16's radical feminist magazine No
More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation.[29] Weathers states her belief that "women's
liberation should be considered as a strategy for an eventual tie-up with the entire revolutionary
movement consisting of women, men, and children", but she posits that "[w]e women must start
this thing rolling" because:

All women suffer oppression, even white women, particularly poor

white women, and especially Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Oriental
and Black American women whose oppression is tripled by any of the
above-mentioned. But we do have females' oppression in common. This
means that we can begin to talk to other women with this common
factor and start building links with them and thereby build and
transform the revolutionary force we are now beginning to amass.[29]

Not only did the civil rights movement primarily focus on the oppression of Black men, but many
Black women faced severe sexism within civil rights groups such as the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee.[30] Within the movement, men dominated the powerful positions. Black
feminists did not want the movement to be the struggle only for Black men's rights, they wanted
Black women's rights to be incorporated too.[31] Black feminists also felt they needed to have
their own movement because the complaints of White feminists sometimes differed from their
own and favored White women.[32]

In the 1960s, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was highly active and
focused on achieving "a social order of justice" through peaceful tactics. The SNCC was founded
by Ella Baker. Baker was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). When Baker served as
Martin Luther King Jr.’s SCLC executive secretary, she was exposed to the hierarchical structure
of the organization. Baker disapproved of what she saw as sexism within both the NAACP and
the SCLC and wanted to start her own organization with an egalitarian structure, allowing
women to voice their needs.[30][33]

In 1964, at a SNNC retreat in Waveland, Mississippi, the members discussed the role of women
and addressed sexism that occurred within the group.[34] A group of women in the SNCC (who
were later identified as White allies Mary King and Casey Hayden) openly challenged the way
women were treated when they issued the "SNCC Position Paper (Women in the Movement)".[35]
The paper listed 11 events in which women were treated as subordinate to men. According to
the paper, women in SNCC did not have a chance to become the face of the organization, the top
leaders, because they were assigned to clerical and housekeeping duties, whereas men were
involved in decision-making.[36]

When Stokely Carmichael was elected chair of the SNCC in 1966, he reoriented the path of the
organization towards Black Power and Black nationalism.[37][38] While it is often argued that
Black women in the SNCC were significantly subjugated during the Carmichael era, Carmichael
appointed several women to posts as project directors during his tenure as chair. By the latter
half of the 1960s, more women were in charge of SNCC projects than during the first half.[39]
Despite these improvements, the SNCC's leadership positions were occupied by men during the
entirety of its existence, which ended in turmoil within a few years of Carmichael's resignation
from the body in 1967.[40]

Angela Davis speaking at the University of Alberta on March 28, 2006

The unofficial symbol of Black feminism in the late 60s, a combination of the raised fist of Black
Power, and the astrological symbol for Venus, denoted an intersection of ideals of Black Power
and militant feminism. Some ideals were shared, such as a "critique on racial capitalism, starting
with slavery". Despite this, Black feminism had reasons to become independent of Black
nationalism, according to some critics, because it had achieved only a niche within the generally
sexist and masculinist structure of Black nationalism.[41][42]

Second-wave feminism

The second-wave feminist movement emerged in the 1960s, led by Betty Friedan. Some Black
women felt alienated by the main planks of the mainstream branches of the second-wave
feminist movement, which largely advocated for women's rights to work outside the home and
expansion of reproductive rights. For example, earning the power to work outside the home was
not seen as an accomplishment by Black women since many Black women had to work both
inside and outside the home for generations due to poverty.[43] Additionally, as Angela Davis later
wrote, while Afro-American women and White women were subjected to multiple unwilled
pregnancies and had to clandestinely abort, Afro-American women were also suffering from
compulsory sterilization programs that were not widely included in dialogue about reproductive
justice.[44]

Some Black feminists who were active in the early second-wave feminism include civil rights
lawyer and author Florynce Kennedy, who co-authored one of the first books on abortion, 1971's
Abortion Rap; Cellestine Ware, of New York's Stanton-Anthony Brigade; and Patricia Robinson.
These women "tried to show the connections between racism and male dominance" in
society.[45]

Fighting against racism and sexism across the White dominated second wave feminist
movement and male dominated Black Power and Black Arts Movement, Black feminist groups
of artists such as Where We At! Black Women Artists Inc were formed in the early 1970s. The
"Where We At" group was formed in 1971 by artists Vivian E. Browne and Faith Ringgold.[46]
During the summer of that year, the group organized the first exhibition in history of only Black
women artists to show the viewing public that Black artist was not synonymous with Black male
artist.[47] In 1972 Where We At! issued a list of demands to the Brooklyn Museum protesting
what it saw as the museum's ignoring of Brooklyn's Black women artists. The demands brought
forth changes and years later, in 2017, the museum's exhibit "We Wanted a Revolution: Black
Radical Women 1965-1985" celebrated the work of Black women artists who were part of the
Black Arts and Black Power movements.[48]

During the 20th century, Black feminism evolved quite differently from mainstream feminism. In
the late 1900s it was influenced by new writers such as Alice Walker whose literary works
spawned the term Womanism, which emphasized the degree of the oppression Black women
faced when compared to White women and, for her, encompassed "the solidarity of
humanity".[19]

Black lesbian feminism

Black lesbian feminism, as a political identity and movement, arose out of a compound set of
grievances involving race, gender, social class, as well as sexual orientation.[49] Black lesbian
women were often unwelcome in male-dominated Black movements, and tended to be
marginalized not only in mainstream second wave feminism (as exemplified by Betty Friedan
who held off making lesbian rights part of her political agenda) but also within the lesbian
feminist movement itself. Here the problem was perhaps one more of class than of race. Among
lesbian feminism's largely White, middle class leadership, the butch/femme sexual style, fairly
common among Black and working class lesbian pairings, was often deprecated as a degrading
imitation of male dominate heterosexuality.[50]

During the 1970s lesbian feminists created their own sector of feminism in response to the
unwillingness of mainstream second wave feminism to embrace their cause. They developed a
militant agenda, broadly challenging homophobia and demanding a respected place within
feminism. Some advocated and experimented with as complete a social separation from men as
possible. These separatist notions were off-putting to Black lesbian feminists involved in Black
Power movements and tended to deepen their feelings of alienation from a largely White-led
movement. As Anita Cornwell stated, "When the shooting starts any Black is fair game. the
bullets don't give a damn whether I sleep with a woman or a man".[51]

In 1970, a defining moment for Black lesbian feminists occurred at the Black Panther's
Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Several Black
lesbian feminists confronted a group of White lesbian feminists about what they saw as a
racially divisive agenda. Following this event, several groups began to include and organize
around Black lesbian politics. For example, in 1973, the National Black Feminist Organization
was founded and included a lesbian agenda.[51] In 1975, the Combahee River Collective was
founded out of experiences and feelings of sexism in the Black Power movements and racism in
the lesbian feminist movement.[50] The primary focus of this collective was to fight what they
saw as interlocking systems of oppression and raise awareness of these systems.[52]

In 1978, the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gay Men was founded.[51] In addition to the
multiple organizations that focused on Black lesbian feminism, there were many authors that
contributed to this movement, such as Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Pat Parker, June Jordan,
Darlene Pagano, Kate Rushin, Doris Davenport, Cheryl Clarke, Margaret Sloan-Hunter, and a
number of others.[53]

1980s and 1990s

In the early 1990s, AWARE (African Woman's Action for Revolutionary Exchange) was formed in
New York by Reena Walker and Laura Peoples after a plenary session on Black women's issues
held at the Malcolm X Conference at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC)
entitled Black Women and Black Liberation: Fighting Oppression and Building Unity.[54] In 1991, the
Malcolm X Conference was held again at BMCC, and the theme that year was "Sisters
Remember Malcolm X: A Legacy to be Transformed". It featured plenary sessions, a workshop
on "Sexual Harassment: Race, Gender and Power", and was held in a much larger theater that
year. Black women were a central focus and not an aside as they were prior. Speakers included
Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Verniece Miller, Reena Walker, Carol Bullard (Asha Bandele), and
Vivian Morrison.[55] At the same time, Reena Walker, along with the members of AWARE, also
worked in coalition with AWIDOO (American Women in Defense of Ourselves), formed by
Barbara Ransby, to sign a full-page ad in The New York Times to stand in support of Anita Hill.[56]

In 1995, Reena Walker went on to put out the call to various women and organized the group
African Americans Against Violence[57] that effectively stopped a parade that a group of
reverends led by Al Sharpton were attempting to hold in Harlem for Mike Tyson.[58] The group,
including Eve and Kathe Sandler, Nsia Bandele, and Indigo Washington, worked successfully to
stop the parade from happening, bringing attention to the struggle of Black women against
sexism and domestic violence.[59] A supporter of Mike Tyson, social worker Bill Jones,
exclaimed "The man has paid his debt" (in regards to Tyson's rape conviction), and joined a large
group of other Tyson supporters in heckling the African Americans Against Violence group,
accusing them of "catering to white radical feminists".[59]

Hip-hop culture

A particularly imminent medium of oppression for Black women in the 1990s was hip-hop
music. During that time, there was little effort to express Black feminism through the music. The
New York hip-hop scene was mainly dominated my men in the 1990s, and most producers were
focused on rap superstars Notorious B.I.G. and Sean "Diddy" Combs. Three female emcees can
be credited to have expanded Black womanhood in music during this time. Lil' Kim who was
signed to Biggie Smalls' Junior M.A.F.I.A. Imprint, expressed her message very quickly.[60]
She achieved an image of fierce independence and comfort with her body. She defied the
presumption in hip-hop that women are there to humble the presence of men. Lil' Kim's
outspokenness and unprecedented lyrics were rejected by many people who believed in the
traditional sound of hip-hop. Lil' Kim stood behind her words and never apologized for who she
is. Faith Evans is another female emcee who broke barriers in the hip-hop world. At just 21 years
old, she was the first female artist signed to Bad Boy Records. Faith Evans spent more than 20
years in the music business fighting gender discrimination and harassment in an industry where
men were the dominant content creators and producers.[60]

Mary J. Blige was another artist who became an advocate of women empowerment in hip-hop.
She was a legendary singer who influenced the Bad Boy Records label, although she was never
signed by them. Together, these women shared a sense of freedom in the music business that
allowed them to bring women together across the world. There was a new perspective in the
spot light that swung the pendulum in a different direction and gave women in hip-hop a
voice.[60]

21st century

Social media

The new century has brought about a shift in thinking away from "traditional" feminism. Third-
wave feminism claimed the need for more intersectionality in feminist activism and the inclusion
of Black and other ethnic minority women. Moreover, the advancement of technology fostered
the development of a new digital feminism. This online activism involved the use of Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, and other forms of social media to discuss gender equality
and social justice. According to NOW Toronto, the internet created a "call-out" culture, in which
sexism or misogyny can be called out and challenged immediately with relative ease.

As an academic response to this shift, many scholars incorporated queer of color critique into
their discussions of feminism and queer theory.[61][62] Queer of color critiques seeks an
intersectional approach to misidentifying with the larger themes of "radicalized
heteronormativity and heteropatriarchy" in order to create a more representative and
revolutionary critique of social categories.[63][64][65] An example of queer of color critique can be
seen in the Combahee River Collective's statement, which addresses the intersectionality of
oppressions faced by Black lesbians.[66]
The 2010s saw a revitalization of Black feminism. As more influential figures began to identify
themselves as feminist, social media saw a rise in young Black feminists willing to bring racist
and sexist situations to light.[67] Brittney Cooper, assistant professor in the Department of
Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, said: "I think Black feminism is in one of the
strongest moments it has seen in a while; From Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC, to Laverne Cox
on Orange Is the New Black to Beyoncé ... we have prominent Black women [sic] identifying
publicly with the term."[68]

Social media served as a medium for Black feminists to express praise or discontent with
organizations' representations of Black women. For example, the 2015 and 2016 Victoria's
Secret Fashion Shows were commended by Ebony magazine for letting four Black models wear
their natural hair on the runway. Black feminists on social media showed support for the natural
hair movement using the hashtags #melanin and #BlackGirlmagic.[69]

Black Girl Magic (#BlackGirlMagic) is a movement that was popularized by CaShawn Thompson
in 2013.[70] The concept was born as a way to "celebrate the beauty, power and resilience of
Black women". Thompson began to use the hashtag #BlackGirlsAreMagic in 2013 to speak
about the positive achievements of Black women. Although it was popularized on social media,
the movement has inspired many organizations to host events using the title, along with support
from celebrities and politicians globally.

Alleged instances of the "appropriation" of Black culture were commented on. For example, a
2015 Vogue Italia photo shoot involving model Gigi Hadid wearing an afro sparked backlash on
Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Some users claimed it was problematic and racist to have a
non-Black model wear an afro and a fake tan to give the appearance of Blackness when the
fashion magazine could have hired a Black model instead.[71] Kearie Daniel wrote that White
people wearing certain hairstyles is a particularly touchy subject in Black feminism because of
the perceived double standard that when White women wear Black hairstyles, they are deemed
"trendy" or "edgy", while Black women are labelled "ghetto" or "unprofessional".[72]

Black feminists also voiced the importance of increasing "representation" of Black women in
television and movies. According to a 2014 study by the University of Southern California, of the
100 top films (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/30000-hollywood-film-characters-heres-
many-werent-white/) of that year, "nearly three-quarters of all characters were white", NPR
reports, and only 17 of those 100 top movies featured non-White lead or co-lead actors. That
number falls further when only looking at non-White women leads, considering only one-third of
speaking roles were for women,[73] according to the same study.[74]
Black Lives Matter

The activist movement Black Lives Matter was initially formed by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and
Patrisse Kahn-Cullors as a hashtag to campaign against racism and police brutality against
African Americans in the United States.[75] The movement contributed to a revitalization and re-
examining of the Black feminist movement.[76] While the deaths of Black men played a major
part in the Black Lives Matter movement, Rekia Boyd, Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson,
Shelly Frey, Yvette Smith, Eleanor Bumpurs, Sandra Bland, and other women were also killed or
assaulted by police officers.[77]

While Black Lives Matter has been critiqued for a failure to focus on Black women's treatment by
the police, it has since been better about incorporating the interlocking systems of oppression
that disadvantage Black women in particular.[78][79] Activism of Black feminists in Black Lives
Matter has included protests against political candidates such as Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump,
and Hillary Clinton, and they have used hashtags such as #oscarssowhite and #sayhername.[80]

Black feminist identity politics and safe spaces

Black feminist identity politics can be defined as knowing and understanding one's own identity
while taking into consideration both personal experience as well as the experiences of those in
history to help form a group of like-minded individuals who seek change in the political
framework of society.[81] It also can be defined as a rejection of oppressive measures taken
against one's group, especially in terms of political injustice.[81]

Black feminist writer Patricia Hill Collins believes that this "outsider within" seclusion suffered by
Black women was created through the domestic sphere, where Black women were considered
separate from the perceived White elite who claimed their dominance over them.[82] They also
felt a disconnect between the Black men's suffering and oppression.[82] As a result of White
feminists excluding Black women from their discourse, Black feminists expressed their own
experiences of marginalization and empowered Black consciousness in society.[82] Due to the
diverse experiences of Black women, it is imperative to Collins to speak for and of personal
accounts of Black women's oppression.[82]

Identity politics have often implemented race, class, and gender as isolated categories as a
means of excluding those who aren't perceived as part of the dominant group.[83] These
constructed biases formed from race, class, and gender are what feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw
believes need to be used, not as a means of degradation, but as a form of empowerment and
self-worth.[83] Ignoring these differences only creates more of a divide between social
movements and other feminist groups, especially in the case of violence against women where
the caliber of violence is correlated with components such as race and class.[83]

Another issue of identity politics is the conflict of group formations and safe spaces for Black
women.[81] In the 1970s, increased literacy among Black women promoted writing and
scholarship as an outlet for feminist discourse where they could have their voices heard.[81] As a
result, Black women sought solace in safe spaces that gave them the freedom to discuss issues
of oppression and segregation that ultimately promoted unity as well as a means of achieving
social justice.[81]

As the notion of color-blindness advocated for a desegregation in institutions, Black women

faced new issues of identity politics and looked for a new safe space to express their
concerns.[81] This was met with a lot of contention, as people saw these Black female groups as
exclusive and separatist.[81] Dominant groups, especially involved in the political sphere, found
these safe spaces threatening because they were away from the public eye and were therefore
unable to be regulated by the higher and more powerful political groups.[81]

Despite the growth in feminist discourse regarding Black identity politics, some men disagree
with the Black feminist identity politics movement.[84] Some Black novelists, such as Kwame
Anthony Appiah, uphold the notion of color-blindness and dismiss identity politics as a proper
means of achieving social justice.[84] To him, identity politics is an exclusionary device
implemented in Black culture and history, like hip hop and jazz, that limit outsider
comprehension and access.[84] However, writer Jeffery A. Tucker believes that identity politics
serves as a foundation where such color-blindness can finally be achieved in the long run if
implemented and understood within society.[84]

Organizations

Black feminist organizations faced some different challenges than other feminist organizations.
Firstly, these women had to "prove to other Black women that feminism was not only for white
women".[85] They also had to demand that White women "share power with them and affirm
diversity" and "fight the misogynist tendencies of Black Nationalism".[85]

The short-lived National Black Feminist Organization was founded in 1973 in New York by
Margaret Sloan-Hunter and others (The NBFO stopped operating nationally in 1975).[86] This
organization of women focused on the interconnectedness of the many prejudices faced by
African-American women, such as racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.[87] In 1975,
Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, Cheryl L. Clarke, Akasha Gloria Hull, and other female activists tied
to the civil rights movement, Black nationalism, or the Black Panther Party established, as an
offshoot of the National Black Feminist Organization, the Combahee River Collective, a radical
lesbian feminist group.[88]

Their founding text referred to important female figures of the abolitionist movement, such as
Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Welles Barnett, and Mary Church
Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women founded in 1896. The
Combahee River Collective opposed the practice of lesbian separatism, considering that, in
practice, separatists focused exclusively on sexist oppression and not on other oppressions
(race, class, etc.)[88]

The Combahee River Collective was one of the most important Black socialist feminist
organizations of all time. This group began meeting in Boston in 1974, a time when socialist
feminism was thriving in Boston. The name Combahee River Collective was suggested by the
founder and African-American lesbian feminist, Barbara Smith, and refers to the campaign led by
Harriet Tubman, who freed 750 slaves near the Combahee River in South Carolina in 1863. Smith
said they wanted the name to mean something to African-American women and that "it was a
way of talking about ourselves being on a continuum of Black struggle, of Black women's
struggle".[89]

The members of this organization consisted of many former members of other political
organizations that worked within the civil rights movement, anti-war movement, labor
movement, and others. Demita Frazier, co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, says these
women from other movements found themselves "in conflict with the lack of a feminist analysis
and in many cases were left feeling divided against [themselves]."[90] The Combahee River
Collective argued in 1974 that the liberation of Black women entails freedom for all people, since
it would require the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression.[91]

As an organization, they were labeled as troublemakers, and many said they were brainwashed
by the man-hating White feminist, that they didn't have their own mind, and they were just
following in the White woman's footsteps.[90] Throughout the 1970s, the Combahee River
Collective met weekly to discuss the different issues concerning Black feminists. They also held
retreats throughout the Northeast from 1977 to 1979 to help "institutionalize Black feminism"
and develop an "ideological separation from white feminism".[90]
As an organization, they founded a local battered women's shelter and worked in partnership
with all community activists, women and men, and gay and straight people, playing an active role
in the reproductive rights movement.[90] The Combahee River Collective ended their work
together in 1980 and is now most widely remembered for developing the Combahee River
Collective Statement, a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the
development of the concepts of identity.[90]

Black feminist literature

The importance of identity

Michelle Cliff believes that there is continuity "in the written work of many African American
Women, ... you can draw a line from the slave narrative of Linda Brent to Elizabeth Keckley's life,
to Their Eyes were Watching God (by Zora Neale Hurston) to Coming of Age in Mississippi (Anne
Moody) to Sula (by Toni Morrison), to the Salt Eaters (by Toni Cade Bambara) to Praise Song for
the Widow (by Paule Marshall)." Cliff believes that all of these women, through their stories,
"Work against the odds to claim the 'I'".[92]

Examples
2011, Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995 by Cheryl
Higashida[93] looks at Black women writers and their contributions to the feminist movement;
specifically the Black feminist movement. Higashida "illustrates how literature is a crucial lens
for studying Black internationalist feminism because these authors were at the forefront of
bringing the perspectives and problems of black women to light against their marginalization
and silencing." Included in her work are writers such as Rosa Guy, Lorraine Hansberry, Audre
Lorde, and Maya Angelou.

1970, Black Woman's Manifesto, published by the Third World Women's Alliance, argued for a
specificity of oppression against Black women. Co-signed by Gayle Lynch, Eleanor Holmes
Norton, Maxine Williams, Frances M Beal, and Linda La Rue, the manifesto, opposing both
racism and capitalism, stated that "the Black woman is demanding a new set of female
definitions and a recognition of herself of a citizen, companion, and confidant, not a
matriarchal villain or a step stool baby-maker. Role integration advocates the complementary
recognition of man and woman, not the competitive recognition of same."[94] Additionally, Toni
Cade Bambara edited the eclectic volume The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970) which
sought to "explore ourselves and set the record straight on the matriarch and the evil Black
 bitch."[95] It featured now considered canonical essays, such as Frances Beal's "Double
Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female" and Toni Cade Bambara's "On the Issue of Roles."

1979, Barbara Smith and Lorraine Bethel edited the Autumn 1979 issue of Conditions.
Conditions 5 was "the first widely distributed collection of Black feminist writing in the U.S."[96]

1992, Black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" to the Anita Hill-Clarence
Thomas Senate Hearings in 1991, naming their effort African American Women in Defense of
Ourselves.[97]

1994, Evelyn Hammonds: "Black (W)holes and The Geometry of Black Female Sexuality"

Evelyn Hammonds begins her essay by reflecting, as a Black lesbian and feminist writer, on the
"consistently exclusionary practices of lesbian and gay studies" that produce such problematic
paucities as the presence of writers of color, articles written on Black women’s sexuality by
Black women that complexly examine race in representations of gender, and the visibility of
Black lesbian experiences (Hammonds, 127). Hammonds articulates how Whiteness defines the
canonical "categories, identities, and subject positions" of lesbian and gay studies and depends
on maintaining and presupposing patterns of Black women and Black lesbian sexualities'
invisibility and absence (Hammonds, 128).

2000, Alice Walker: "In Search of Our Mothers Garden"

This articulation is directly linked to Hammonds' concern about the visibility and audibility of
Black queer sexualities, since Black women’s sexualities are perceived as always invisible or
absent, then lesbian and queer Black women and authors must follow as doubly invisible. While
White sexuality as the normative sexuality has been challenged by other writers, Hammonds
frames her intervention as reaching beyond the limits of this familiar critique. To effectively
challenge the hegemony of Whiteness within Queer theory, Hammonds charges lack feminists
with the major projects of reclaiming sexuality so that Black women and their sexualities may
register as present and power relations between White women and Black women's expression of
gender and sexuality becomes a part of theory making within Queer studies (Hammonds, 131).

Black holes become a metaphor used to stage an intervention within Queer theory—Hammonds
mobilizes this astrophysical phenomenon to provide a new way to approach the relationship
between less visible (but still present) Black female sexualities and the more visible (but not
normal) White sexualities. Hammonds writes that in Queer studies' "theorizing of difference"
White female sexualities hold the position of visibility which is "theoretically dependent upon an
absent yet-ever-present pathologized Black female sexuality" (Hammonds, 131).
 2000, in her introduction to the 2000 reissue of the 1983 Black feminist anthology Home Girls,
theorist and author Barbara Smith states her opinion that "to this day most Black women are
unwilling to jeopardize their 'racial credibility' (as defined by Black men) to address the
realities of sexism."[98] Smith also notes that "even fewer are willing to bring up homophobia
and heterosexism, which are, of course, inextricably linked to gender oppression."[98]

The involvement of Pat Parker in the Black feminist movement was reflected in her writings as a
poet. Her work inspired other Black feminist poets such as Hattie Gossett.[99]

In 2018, Carol Giardian wrote an article, "Mow to Now: Black Feminism Resets the Chronology of
the Founding of Modern Feminism", which explores Black women and their involvement with the
organizing of the 1963 March on Washington (MOW). Particular focus is given to how this was
pivotal to the shift of feminist organizing of the 1960s. Many activists are noted, including
Dorothy Height, Pauli Murray, and Anna Arnold Hedgeman. Facing down powerful male figures of
the Black church, they established feminist protest models that they subsequently used to
inform the establishment of the National Organization for Women in 1966.[100]

Other theorists and writers who have contributed to the literature of Black feminism include
Moya Bailey and Trudy of Gradient Lair, who both write about the anti-Black and/or racist
misogyny against Black women, also known as misogynoir, a term coined by Bailey in 2008. In
2018, both these women wrote an article named "On Misogynoir: Citation, erasure and
plagiarism", which talks about the works of Black feminists often being plagiarized or erased
from most literary works, also implicitly and sometimes explicitly linked to gender oppression,
particularly for women of color.[101]

Misogynoir is grounded in the theory of intersectionality; it examines how identities such as race,
gender, and sexual orientation connect in systems of oppression. Modern-day Black activists,
such as Feminista Jones, a feminist commentator, claim that "Misogynoir provides a racialised
nuance that mainstream feminism wasn’t catching" and that "there is a specific misogyny that is
aimed at Black women and is uniquely detrimental to Black women."[102]

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Black feminism.

Womanism

African-American women's suffrage movement

 Black Girl Magic

Black matriarchy

Intersectionality

Misogyny in hip hop culture

From Black Power to Hip Hop: Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism

PaVEM

Postcolonial feminism

Purplewashing

Separatist feminism

Third World feminism

Triple oppression

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74. Beck, Lia. " 'Hidden Figures' Story Of Black Women's Success Is Necessary In More Ways Than One" (http
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77. Lindsey, Treva B. (2015). "A Love Letter to Black Feminism". The Black Scholar. 45 (4): 1–6.
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78. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. "Transcript of "The urgency of intersectionality" " (https://www.ted.com/talks/kimber

le_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality/transcript) . Retrieved October 18, 2018.

79. T., Bridewell, AnaLexicis (January 1, 2016). "Black Lives Matter: Why Black Feminism?" (http://digitalcom
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80. Langford, Catherine (2016). "Blacklivesmatter: Epistemic Positioning, Challenges, And Possibilities".
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81. Collins, Patricia Hill (2000). Black Feminist Thought (https://archive.org/details/blackfeministtho0000c

oll) (Second ed.). New York, New York: Routledge. p. 299 (https://archive.org/details/blackfeministtho0
000coll/page/299) . ISBN 978-0-415-92483-2.

82. Lloyd, Moya (2005). Beyond Identity Politics: Feminism, Power, and Politics. London: Sage Publications.
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83. Crenshaw, Kimberlé (July 1991). "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence
against Women of Color". Stanford Law Review. 43 (6): 1241–1299. doi:10.2307/1229039 (https://doi.or
g/10.2307%2F1229039) . JSTOR 1229039 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039) .

84. Tucker, Jeffrey (2004). A Sense of Wonder: Samuel R. Delany, Race, Identity, and Difference. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press. p. 8.

85. Burns, Stewart (2006). "Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968–1980", Journal of
American History 93: 296–298.

86. Springer, Kimberly (2005). Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968–1980. United
States: Duke University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 9780822386858. "Within five organizations I studied-- the
Third World Women's Alliance (1968-1979), the National Black Feminist Organization (1973-1975), the
National Alliance of Black Feminists (1976-1980), the Combahee River Collective (1975–1980), and Black
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6010648/http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Black-Feminist-Statement.html) . Archived
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Further reading

Books
bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism (1981)

Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations (http
s://www.worldcat.org/title/re-creating-ourselves-african-women-critical-transformations/oclc/10
36837198?referer=di&ht=edition) (1994)

Muhs, Gabriella Gutiérrez y; Harris, Angela P.; Flores Niemann, Yolanda; González, Carmen G.
(2012). Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia.
Boulder, Colorado: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-87421-922-7.

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of
Empowerment (https://b-ok.cc/book/2530585/8d0103) (1990) and Black Sexual Politics:
African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism (here (https://b-
ok.cc/book/849376/451e8a) ) (Routledge, 2005)

Third World Women's Alliance. Black Women's Manifesto (https://library.duke.edu/digitalcollecti

ons/wlmpc_wlmms01009/) (1970)

Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (here (https://b-ok.cc/book/3582079/135d12) ).

Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983; Reed. 2000

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color , (here (https://b-ok.cc/book/2
039470/5d152c) ) edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa (Persephone Press,
1981; 2nd edn 1984, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press; translated into Spanish (https://b-o
k.cc/book/3396968/ba7e89) in 2002 by Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Norma Alarcón)

Articles
Benard, Akeia A.F. (October–December 2016). "Colonizing Black female bodies within
patriarchal capitalism" (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2374623816680622) . Sexualization,
Media, & Society. 2 (4): 237462381668062. doi:10.1177/2374623816680622 (https://doi.org/1
0.1177%2F2374623816680622) .
 Chapman, Erin D. "A historiography of black feminist activism" History Compass (2019)
https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12576 abstract (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hi
c3.12576)

Harnois, Catherine E (2010). "Race, Gender and the Black women's Standpoint". Sociological
Forum. 25 (1): 68–85. doi:10.1111/j.1573-7861.2009.01157.x (https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.15
73-7861.2009.01157.x) .

McClaurin, Irma, ed. (2001). Black Feminist Anthropology. Rutgers University Press.

Springer, Kimberly (Summer 2002). "Third wave Black feminism?". Signs. 27 (4): 1059–1082.
doi:10.1086/339636 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F339636) . JSTOR 10.1086/339636 (https://
www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339636) . S2CID 143519056 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/
CorpusID:143519056) .

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