In my Intro to Womens Studies class, one white woman, who said she was from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, chafed at what she described as the divisiveness of Black feminism. I had seen my father harassed by police, in Cincinnati, Ohio, for jaywalking. Smith told me, By identity politics, we meant simply this: we have a right as Black women in the nineteen-seventies to formulate our own political agendas. She went on, We dont have to leave out the fact that we are women, we do not have to leave out the fact that we are Black. In the reality of organizing, these tensions manifested themselves in white womens desire to focus their organizing on abortion rights, while Black feminists argued for the broader framework of reproductive justice, which included the struggle against forced sterilizations of Black and brown women. Currently we are planning to gather together a collectIon of Black feminist writing. A good portion of the tension was generated by wild and unfounded assertions that socialism and the spoils of social democracy were only of interest to white people. All rights reserved. Apparently, the sisterhood was powerful. But her caution also betrays the hope and deep desire for radical change that all revolutionaries harbor. We decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study group. 6, No. 3, Why We Cant Wait: (Re)Examining the Opportunities and Challenges for Black Women and Girls in Education (Summer 2016), pp. Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for Black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and I970s. These were hardly doctrinaire disputes. Protests of George Floyds Killing Transform Into a Global Movement. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. It had never occurred to me that the framework of race was not nearly capacious enough to capture the particular ways that Black women experienced American society. During the summer those of us who were still meeting had determined the need to do political work and to move beyond consciousness-raising and serving exclusively as an emotional support group. Illustration by Palesa Monareng; Source photograph by Vivien Killilea / MAKERS / Getty. The fact that individual Black feminists are living in isolation all over the country, that our own numbers are small, and that we have some skills in writing, printing, and publishing makes us want to carry out these kinds of projects as a means of organizing Black feminists as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups. One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ideology that was promoted at that particular conference, we became more aware of the need for us to understand our own economic situation and to make our own economic analysis. Black feminism made sense of my mothers life of work, her compulsory caretaking and debt. Both are essential to the development of any life. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 11, No. Do you find this information helpful? They stand in contrast to the Black poor and working class, who live in veritable police states, with low-wage work, poor health care, substandard and expensive housing, and an acute sense of insecurity. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. She founded the legendary Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, with Audre Lorde, in 1980. Still, hundreds of women have been active at different times during the three-year existence of our group. We just wanted to see what we had. When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO first eastern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even a focus. One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ideology that was promoted at that particular conference, we became more aware of the need for us to understand our own economic situation and to make our own economic analysis. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever consIdered our specific oppression as a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. As a result, many Black women felt shut out of directing those organizations, just as they felt that their experiences as Black women were ignored. 3/4, THE 1970s (FALL/WINTER 2015), pp. We might, for example, become involved in workplace organizing at a factory that employs Third World women or picket a hospital that is cutting back on already inadequate heath care to a Third World community, or set up a rape crisis center in a Black neighborhood. A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political. The Combahee River Collective formed in Boston, in 1974, during a period that regularly produced organizations that claimed the mantle of radical or revolutionary struggle. This document was one of the earliest explorations of the intersection of multiple oppressions, including racism and heterosexism. 43, No. The C.R.C. When I reached college, in the nineties, these same debates could be found animating womens-studies classes. 1100 Words5 Pages. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. Accusations that Black feminism divides the Black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous Black womens movement. Malcolm X made it plain: The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.. The eugenics programs of the early twentieth century continued into the nineteen-seventies, as tens of thousands of women in the United States were subjected to sterilization procedures without their informed consent. During our first summer when membership had dropped off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a Black community. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. Wallace is pessimistic but realistic in her assessment of Black feminists position, particularly in her allusion to the nearly classic isolation most of us face. 50, No. And every Black woman who came, came out of a strongly-felt need for some level of possibility that did not previously exist in her life. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. During the summer those of us who were still meeting had determined the need to do political work and to move beyond consciousness-raising and serving exclusively as an emotional support group. 155-191, Race, Gender & Class, Vol. [2]. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thousands unknownwho have had a shared awareness of how their sexual identity combined with their racial identity to make their whole life situation and the focus of their political struggles unique. Summary: The Combahee River Collective. 225 0 obj <> endobj 240 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<55A8DDF17D624C57A3DD9554302617BF><2BF3B81EF49545358296A73A72E810D6>]/Index[225 24]/Info 224 0 R/Length 78/Prev 307736/Root 226 0 R/Size 249/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream In the case of Black women this is a particularly repugnant, dangerous, threatening, and therefore revolutionary concept because it is obvious from looking at all the political movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of liberation than ourselves. No one had the right to strip socialism and its rootedness in collectivity, democracy, and human fulfillment from Black women, or the Black radical tradition. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. The women of the C.R.C. Many of us were active in those movements (Civil Rights, Black nationalism, the Black Panthers), and all of our lives Were greatly affected and changed by their ideologies, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. Respond to the following prompts in 300+ words (total), with reference to the Module 2 texts: Both "Ain't I a Woman?" and "A Black Feminist Statement: The Combahee River Collective" make statements in response to exclusionary aspects of feminist activism in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively. But the civil-rights revolution and concerted efforts by the political establishment created a different reality for a small number of African-Americans. There have always been Black women activistssome known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. [2]. gave us the political tools to understand the difference between bottom-up and top-down politics, and their distorted manifestation in the identity politics of today. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like interlocking, manifold, inroads and more. The quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police alone. described how the myriad ways that Black women experienced oppression could translate into a radical rejection of the status quo. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); We were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being ladylike and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. Even our Black womens style of talking/testifying in Black language about what we have experienced has a resonance that is both cultural and political. The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( / kmbi / km-BEE) [1] was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. Ad Choices. She and my father met in high school, dated through college, and eventually landed in graduate school, at SUNY Buffalo, in the early nineteen-seventies. As we grew older we became aware of the threat of physical and sexual abuse by men. Learn. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen even in the abstract world. saw themselves as socialists and as part of the broader left, but they understood that no mass movement for socialism could be organized without responding to the particular forms of oppression experienced by Black women, Chicana women, lesbians, single mothers, and so many other groups. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Before looking at the recent development of Black feminism we would like to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American womens continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation. The first was that oppression on the basis of identity . We reprint that version here in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of its publication by Monthly Review Press. Tessa_Nunn. Match. Before becoming leader of communist China, Mao was an ardent library patron and then worked as a library assistant. There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black Feminism, that is, the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experiences of individual Black womens lives. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black womens lives. We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. In describing the distinct experiences of Black women who were lesbians, they pioneered what would eventually become known as intersectionalitythe idea that multiple identities can be constantly and simultaneously present within one persons body. We must also question whether Lesbian separatism is an adequate and progressive political analysis and strategy, even for those who practice it, since it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of womens oppression, negating the facts of class and race. Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news. The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. Black, other Third World, and working women have been involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have served to obscure our participation. Their point was a simple one: you cannot expect people to join your movement by telling them to put their particular issues on hold for the sake of some ill-defined unity at a later date. We feel that it is absolutely essential to demonstrate the reality of our politics to other Black women and believe that we can do this through writing and distributing our work. [1] During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. But the radicality of Black womens politics was based on their position at the bottom. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hardworking allies in their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing Black women. [1] During that time we have been involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while at the same time doing political work within our own group and in coalition with . In 2016, as the fortieth anniversary of the Combahee Statement approached, I realized that it would be an opportunity to draw attention back to the document and its astounding prescience and analysis, and to complicate a stilted and unsatisfying national discussion about who the real inheritors were of socialist politics in the United States. Teaching with Reveal Digitals American Prison Newspapers Collection, Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves,. In 1973, Black feminists, primarily located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate Black feminist group. We now have language, we have an analysis of whats going on with the prison-industrial complex, with mass incarceration, with police brutality, with extrajudicial murderswe have that, and we have bases of operation, because there are definitely Black Lives Matter organizations in various cities around the country. She continued, But the question for me is: Whats next? The Combahee River Collective Statement conceptualized the notion of intersectionalitythe idea that marginalization and oppression are experienced simultaneously in different, interlocking ways as a result of how systems of domination interact with people's identities. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression. 2 (Summer, 1979), pp. The reaction of Black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and how they oppress. The statement is an important piece of feminist theory and description of black feminism (Balliet, pg. But my mothers experiences were altogether different. A few years ago, Barbara Smith told me that she and her comrades believed that, by naming the group after the Combahee River Raid, they were both honoring Harriet Tubman and indicating that liberation required political action. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. 20072023 Blackpast.org. As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. The fact that individual Black feminists are living in isolation all over the country, that our own numbers are small, and that we have some skills in writing, printing, and publishing makes us want to carry out these kinds of projects as a means of organizing Black feminists as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups. The work to be done and the countless issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression. We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us. We discovered that all of us, because we were smart had also been considered ugly, i.e., smart-ugly. Smart-ugly crystallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop our intellects at great cost to our social lives. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black womens lives. Mao Zedong: Reader, Librarian, Revolutionary? In many ways, they built on the work of the Third World Womens Alliance, which was an outgrowth of the Black Womens Liberation Committeea caucus of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It is a foundational document in Black feminism, whose impact continues to be seen and felt . (There was no refuge in Boston at that time.) A small donation would help us keep this available to all. 12, No. [1] [2] The Collective was instrumental in highlighting that the white feminist movement was not addressing their particular needs. When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO first eastern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even a focus. 20 (2018), pp. We feel that it is absolutely essential to demonstrate the reality of our politics to other Black women and believe that we can do this through writing and distributing our work. If black women were free, everyone . Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. We know that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape of Black women by white men as a weapon of political repression. Stemming out of growing disillusionments with mainstream feminism, the Collective was a Boston-based organisation of Black queer socialist activists. 4, Commemorative Issue: 50 Years of AAR (Winter 2017), pp. [3] They are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement,[4] a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity as used among political organizers and social theorists.[5][6]. Terms in this set (20) interlocking. At the beginning of 1976, when some of the women who had not wanted to do political work and who also had voiced disagreements stopped attending of their own accord, we again looked for a focus. 1-8, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. We discovered that all of us, because we were smart had also been considered ugly, i.e., smart-ugly. Smart-ugly crystallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop our intellects at great cost to our social lives. If the 1960s was America's decade of mass mobilisation, the 1970s perhaps saw the greatest explosion of groups clambering for their rights to simply exist. When I was seven, I saw my father jump in to stop a group of white teen-agers from threatening my older brother, only to have the police blame him for the altercation. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism. Henrietta Lacks and the Debate Over the Ethics of Bio-Medical Research, African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African American Scientists and Technicians of the Manhattan Project, Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, Foundation, Organization, and Corporate Supporters. 8XXANaA{s*ZQe(GCCM|+J_mCmI^tiPrLs:YfZ/&`7?2I!KRODf!;EM$X Ghpo:A0r# We began functioning as a study group and also began discussing the possibility of starting a Black feminist publication. We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice. As we have already stated, we reject the stance of Lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. saw themselves as revolutionaries whose aspirations far exceeded womens rights: they aspired to the overthrow of capitalism. Evictions and foreclosures in the U.S. could trigger a new wave of infection and illnessbut its not too late to act. We have arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relationships that takes into account the specific class position of Black women who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white-collar and professional levels. Although we were not doing political work as a group, individuals continued their involvement in Lesbian politics, sterilization abuse and abortion rights work, Third World Womens International Womens Day activities, and support activity for the trials of Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and Inz Garca. For example, we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being ladylike and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. We need to think about things in a different way. And who better to do that than feminists of color who are queer and on the left? She added, One of the signs to me that feminist-of-color politics are influencing this moment is the multiracial, multiethnic diversityand not just racial and ethnic, but every kind of diversityof the people who are in the streets now. The influential Combahee River Collective statement, co-authored by Barbara Smith, expressed a radical, queer black feminist platform still relevant to expressions of black feminism today. Black, other Third World, and working women have been involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have served to obscure our participation. 2 (February/March, 1975), pp. We have also done many workshops and educationals on Black feminism on college campuses, at womens conferences, and most recently for high school women. However, we had no way of conceptualizing what was so apparent to us, what we knew was really happening. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR. Combahee River Collective Statement. Most important, the C.R.C. All of this stood in stark contradiction to what, as a young person, I had understood feminism to be. My father left when I was two, and my mother took us to Dallas, where she worked as a reading specialist for the Dallas Independent School District. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters. Some images used in this set are licensed under the Creative Commons through Flickr.com.Click to see the original works with their full license. The C.R.C. During our first summer when membership had dropped off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a Black community. What We Believe It is a foundational document in Black feminism, whose impact continues to be seen and felt throughout US political life today. The "second wave" feminist movement fought for body . As Angela Davis points out in Reflections on the Black Womans Role in the Community of Slaves, Black women have always embodied, if only in their physical manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic and subtle ways. Currently we are planning to gather together a collectIon of Black feminist writing. We also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. The Combahee Statement obliterated that premise. 190-222, African American Review, Vol. Identity politics originated from the need to reshape movements that had until then prioritized the monotony of sameness over the strategic value of difference. As the statement read: We need to articulate the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working/economic lives. 350-354, Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Meridians, Vol. 4, Democratic Theory (Autumn, 2007), pp. To Jeanne Manford, it was just part of being a parent. [2] Wallace, Michele. 1/2 (2007), pp. In the fall, when some members returned, we experienced several months of comparative inactivity and internal disagreements which were first conceptualized as a Lesbian-straight split but which were also the result of class and political differences. But then I understood it differently, not just as a critical document in the canon of feminist literature or as a much-needed exposition of the origins of Black feminism. Those were fine things to act against and struggle for, but they felt like lightweight politics in contrast to the things that my nineteen-year-old self was concerned about: the U.S. presence in the Middle East, police brutality and racism, poverty and inequality. The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. "w- d4bJeR|oEj ')IwLDc8="zJ 8X!. In the 1970's African American women created the Combahee River Collective to address the unique struggles that African American women face in their day-to-day lives. We have found that it is very difficult to organize around Black feminist issues, difficult even to announce in certain contexts that we are Black feminists. Your donation is fully tax-deductible. They fared no better in organizations led by white women, who, for the most part, could not understand how racism compounded the experiences of Black women, creating a new dimension of oppression. Although we are in essential agreement with Marxs theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he analyzed, we know that his analysis must be extended further in order for us to understand our specific economic situation as Black women. This became the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO). Wells, the NAACP, and the Historical Record, The Interstitial Politics of Black Feminist Organizations, The Modern Mammy and the Angry Black Man: African American Professionals' Experiences with Gendered Racism in the Workplace, Talking Back: The Perceptions and Experiences of Black Girls Who Attend City High School, Practicing Love: Black Feminism, Love-Politics, and Post-Intersectionality, notes prompted by the national black feminist organization, Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic Engagement, Radical Feminism, Lesbian Separatism, and Queer Theory, BEYOND "BLACK MACHO": AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHELE WALLACE, The Edelin Manslaughter Trial and the Anti-Abortion Movement, She Ain't No Rosa Parks: The Joan Little RapeMurder Case and Jim Crow Justice in the PostCivil Rights South, Lessons in Self-Defense: Gender Violence, Racial Criminalization, and Anticarceral Feminism, Racism and Feminism: A Schism in the Sisterhood, Alondra Nelson: Leave More Genius Work Behind, Unmaking a Priest: The Rite of Degradation.
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