Black Feminism

Group 2 American Women Class

November 24, 2010
The Social Condition
of Black Women
• What is worse than becoming black and female
at the same time?
• Black Women experience racism, sexism and
classism
• It can be seen from Black Women position in the
Black Liberation Movement and in Women
Movement
Black Women in Black
Liberation Movement
• Black women underwent sexism
• Black women leaders were thrown away from
this movement, since black males believed that
‘their liberation depended on their women
adopting a less assertive style’
• Sexism existed in some black male speakers’
speeches, as expressed by Amiri Baraka who
held that men and women were naturally
different and thus there could never be equality
between them
Black Women in the Women
Movement
• Black women were also active in the Women
Movement, however in this movement they were
exposed to racism
• Black women were excluded. They were only
invited into group discussion and conference
which topics discussed about Black women
• Women Movement itself was indeed dominated
and initiated by white middle-class women
Early Black Feminism Figures

1. Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)

 She was a Methodist abolitionist and women’s
right activist
 Her most significant speech was named “Ain’t I A
Woman” delivered at the Women's Convention in
Akron, Ohio, on May 29, 1851
 “In her speech, Truth argued that while American
culture often placed white women upon a pedestal
and gave them certain privileges (most notably that
of not working), this attitude was not extended to
black women.”
2. Anna Julia Cooper
• She was an author and educator
• Her first Book entitled A Voice from the
South: By A Woman from the South was
recognized as the first work of black feminism.
• She believed that black women deserved access to
higher education and, during her lifetime as
educator, she struggled for it.
3. Nannie Helen Burroughs
• She was an educator, religious
leader, and orator.
• Her most popular speech was "How the Sisters
are Hindered from Helping"at the annual
conference of the National Baptist Convention
in Richmond, Virginia in 1900. 
• As a powerful orator, she denounced lynchings,
racial segregation, employment discrimination
and the European colonization of Africa.
Contemporary Black Feminism
Figures
• Barbara Smith (born December 16, 1946) in
Cleveland is an African American, a lesbian feminist
who has played a significant role in building and
sustaining Black feminism in the United States
• She was among the first to define an African
American women’s literary tradition and to build
black women’s studies and black feminism in the
United States
• In 1975 Smith reorganized the Boston chapter of the
National Black Feminist Organization to establish the
Combahee River Collective, Black feminist Lesbian
organization
 Barbara Smith

Along with Audre Lorde and Cherrie Moraga Smith

fought for the growing need for women of color to
have their own autonomous publishing resource and
made Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first
U.S. publisher for women of color.
Her famous writings are:
 All the Women are White, the Men are Blacks, But
Some of Us are Brave (1982)
 The Truths that Never Hurts: Writings on Race,
Gender, and Freedom (2000)
 Alice Malsenior Walker
• (born February 9, 1944) an African American
author and poet.
• Alice was inspired by her mother’s struggle to
send her to school where the surrounding society
forbade her.
• In 1952, her right eye was accidentally shot by
her brother, causing a permanent blind on it.
• A disfiguring layer of scar tissue formed over it,
made her felt like and outcast and turned for
solace to read and write poetry.
• She realized that her traumatic injury had some
value in her. She was capable to really see people
and things, really to notice relationships and to
learn to be patient enough to care about how they
turned out
• In 1982, Walker published the novel “The Color
Purple” which become a best selling book, later
adapted into highly acclaimed movie (1985) as
well as a successful Broadway play (2005)
• Walker was also very active in Humanity activities
such as supporting Civil Rights Movement, aiding
Gaza and protesting War on Iraq
National Black Feminist Organization
(NBFO)
• NBFO was founded on May 1973.
• It addressed the double burden of sexism and racism
faced by black women.
• The first meeting took place in New York City and
included prominent activists Michele Wallace,
Margaret Sloan (chairman), Flo Kennedy, Faith
Ringgold, and Doris Wright.
• The 1973 Statement of Purpose for the NBFO
declared the organization was formed, “to address
ourselves to the particular and specific needs of the
larger, but almost cast-aside half of the black race in
America, the black woman.”
• The group asserted in their 1973 Statement of
Purpose:
"We, not white men or black men, must define our
self-image as black women and not fall into the
mistake of being placed on the pedestal which is
even being rejected by white women."
• The first conference was held in December of 1973
that drew hundreds of black feminist all around the
country.
• Because of internal dissension on the most effective
strategy to employ in pursuing black feminist
liberation, a lack of support from much larger and
older black sororities, personal and regional
disputes between members, and feelings of split
loyalty to the causes of black liberation and
feminist liberation, the NBFO was a short-lived
organization.
The Combahee River Collective (CFC)
• NBFO lay the groundwork for the establishment
of CFC in 1977 and a grassroots Black feminist
organization in Boston.
• The Collective's work broke significant new
ground because it was explicitly socialist,
addressed homophobia, and called for sisterhood
among Black women of various sexual
orientations.
• CFC developed the Combahee River Collective
statement, 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.
• Black lesbian feminists figures such as Audre
Lorde, Pat Parker, Margaret Sloan, and Barbara
Smith.
Ideas Fought By Black Feminism
• Goals of black feminism are generally
contained in the Statement of Purpose and
the Combahee River Collective
• Black feminist organizations that emerged
during 1970s struggled for their demand to
get the share power with the white women,
the support on diversity, the fight against
misogynist tendencies from Black male, and
the recognition of the existence of Black
Feminist movement to prove that the
feminism was not only for the white women.
• Black feminism generally fights for these
ideas:
▫ Gaining a recognition in the Women Movement
dominated by White-Middle Class women (no
racism) and in Black Liberation Movement
dominated by Black males (no sexism)
▫ Fighting for the needs of women of color since
when people talked and fought about the needs of
black people, they merely concerned about the
needs of black males
▫ Encouraging and empowering Black women to
develop their own distinctive images, aside from
being defined by males or White women. Free
from all false unrealistic and unnatural
womanhood
• Black feminism is slightly different from
White feminism in terms of it tries to still
go along with Black-male-dominated
movement to eliminate all kinds of
oppression
Specifically, Barbara Smith defined the
issues struggled by the black feminist in the
U.S. Among the issues are:
1. reproductive rights11. labor organizing
2.sterilization abuse 12. anti-imperialist struggles
3.equal access to abortion 13. anti-racist organizing
4.health care 14. nuclear disarmament
5. child care 15. preserving the environment
6. the rights of the disabled 16. battering
7. violence against women 17. Rape
8. Sexual harassment 18. welfare rights
9. aging 19. lesbian and gay rights
10. police brutality
Conclusion
• Black feminism emerged as a response of racism
in the Women Movement, sexist in the Black
Liberation Movement and class oppression
undergone by Black Women
• Black feminism empowered black women to have
faith in themselves and it becomes a trait
bequeathed to black females
• Many common distinctive popular black women
keep on celebrating this, figures such as Oprah
Winfrey or Beyonce always empower black
women specifically in their works