The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. Equally dismayed by the direction of the feminist movement, which they believed to be dominated by middle-class white women, and the suffocating masculinity in Black-nationalist organizations, they set out to formulate their own politics and strategies in response to their distinct experiences as Black women. I was still annoyed by her absence and neglect when I was younger. 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. But Black women who tried to utilize public welfare so that they could spend more time caring for their children were demonized as freeloaders, even as white women who chose to work at home were celebrated for prioritizing their families over personal ambition. What was the Combahee River Collective and what were the politics and vision advanced by the group, The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. This became the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO). 159). The women of the C.R.C. 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 anyone of these types of privilege have. 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. We must realize that men and women are a complement to each other because there is no house/family without a man and his wife. We believe in collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political . The C.R.C. How do those who have been the objects of scientific study and medical experimentation become the agents or the producers of scientific knowledge? Eliminating racism in the white womens movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. were not the first to break with white feminist and Black-nationalist organizations. pioneered the notion of identity politics, perhaps one of the most controversial and misunderstood terms in all of U.S. politics. She didnt know about the Volcker Shock and the recession that would follow. The overwhelming majority of Black women were working-class and were forced to labor both outside and inside their homes. The Combahee River Collective Statement appeared as a movement document in April 1977. Instead, I read it as a powerful intervention for the left as a whole. 3 (February 1974), pp. In the statement, the authors described the concept of identity politics in the following way: We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody elses oppression. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. The reaction of Black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. 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. described how the myriad ways that Black women experienced oppression could translate into a radical rejection of the status quo. Because Black women were among the most marginalized people in this country, their political struggles brought them into direct conflict with the intertwined malignancies of capitalismracism, sexism, and poverty. In the late 1960s, gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan made political hay by picking a fight with UC Berkeley over student protest and tenured radicals.. The Combahee River Collective started its activities in 1974 and was committed to a non-hierarchical structure. 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. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 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. The CRC made two key observations in their use of identity politics. Currently we are planning to gather together a collectIon of Black feminist writing. [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. 730-734, The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of African American Review (St. Louis University), Massachusetts Historical Review (MHR), Vol. The first was that oppression on the basis of identity . Most important, the C.R.C. The overwhelming feeling that we had is that after years and years we had finally found each other. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black womens lives. Join our new membership program on Patreon today. The Black women of the C.R.C. 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. Reading the statement for the first time, two things struck me. We are of course particularly committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression. 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. 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. During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues of particular relevance to Black women. Here is the way male and female roles were defined in a Black nationalist pamphlet from the early 1970s: Will it turn into something more lasting than a frustrated outburst from those at the bottom? Thats what we meant by identity politics, that we have a right. As BIack women we find any type of biological determinism a particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic. 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. 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 had a retreat in the late spring which provided a time for both political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. 1977 Both Truth and Combahee River Collective 's readings are interesting . In our consciousness-raising sessions, for example, we have in many ways gone beyond white womens revelations because we are dealing with the implications of race and class as well as sex. 5, No. Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness before becoming conscious of the concepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and most importantly, feminism, the political analysis and practice that we women use to struggle against our oppression. We had a retreat in the late spring which provided a time for both political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Both of these articles talk about black women 's rights in the 19 th and 20 th centuries talking about topics of racism and sexism . ability, experience or even understanding. Accusations that Black feminism divides the Black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous Black womens movement. Racism alone could not explain what killed my mother. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. As Black feminists and Lesbians we know that we have a very definite revolutionary task to perform and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us. We also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. It leaves out far too much and far too many people, particularly Black men, women, and children. 2023 Cond Nast. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their maleness, per sei.e., their biological malenessthat makes them what they are. 3, Gendering the Carceral State: African American Women, History, and the Criminal Justice System (Summer 2015), pp. 2. Key concepts addressed in assigned readings. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. It was mind-blowing! 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. The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World and working people. 2 (February/March, 1975), pp. They could not help her relax, work less, or be more present. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough. Black women were at the helm of the growing Black Lives Matter movement, and they, too, were gravitating to the politics of the C.R.C. Three of her brothers followed her to Dallas, and one, a Vietnam veteran, lived in our garage for a time, as he tried to jump-start his life. ITHAKA. Any concept, once it is released into the world, can take on new meanings when confronted with new problems. 155-191, Race, Gender & Class, Vol. A small donation would help us keep this available to all. 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. 1, No. The group broke from the Boston chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization, and named themselves after a daring Union Army raid, led by Harriet Tubman, to liberate seven hundred and fifty enslaved people in South Carolina. The reaction of Black men to feminism has been notoriously negative. 3 (Autumn, 1980), pp. 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. The genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism It was our experience and disillusionment within these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periphery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a politics that was anti-racist, unlike those of white women, and anti-sexist, unlike those of Black and white men. 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. Learn. 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,. The C.R.C. The Combahee Statement obliterated that premise. The inclusiveness of our politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of women, Third World and working people. The sanctions In the Black and white communities against Black women thinkers is comparatively much higher than for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classes. The collective joined together to develop the Combahee River Collective Statement, which was a . Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and our community which allows us to continue our struggle and work. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. Rumors that enslaved Black New Yorkers were planning a revolt spread across Manhattan even more quickly than fires for which they were being blamed. After all, werent we all women? These were hardly doctrinaire disputes. drew on their experiences in Black, male-dominated organizations. 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. This intersectional group was created because there was a sense that both the feminist movement or civil rights movement didn't reflect the particular needs of Black women and lesbians. 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. The Strange Career of the Lady Possum of the New World, To Get Help for Sick Kids, Mothers Wrote to Washington, Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, About the American Prison Newspapers Collection, Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough., I recently spoke with Barbara Smith, who made clear that identity politics was not intended to be exclusionary or to contend that only those who suffered a particular oppression could fight against it or even comment on it. At that time, when I first thought of collecting an oral history of the Combahee River Collective, which became the book How We Get Free, Senator Bernie Sanders was in the thick of a contentious Democratic Presidential primary. Contemporary Black feminism is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters. 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. It was one of, if not the first, documents to coin and define identity politics, and its descriptions of interlocking systems of oppression are integral to Kimberl Crenshaws concept of intersectionality. 4-5. Solidarity was the bridge by which different groups of people could connect on the basis of mutual understanding, respect, and the old socialist edict that an injury to one was an injury to all. their name based off of the Combahee River raid of 1863 led by Harriet Tubman. 2 (Spring, 2001), pp. Ad Choices. As we have already stated, we reject the stance of Lesbian separatism because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism. 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. Test. Black feminists and many more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence. 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. 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. 3/4, SOLIDARITY (FALL/WINTER 2014), pp. 571-582, By: Leslie Bow, Avtar Brah, Mishuana Goeman, Diane Harriford, Analouise Keating, Yi-Chun Tricia Lin, Laura Prez, Becky Thompson, Zenaida Peterson, Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, Kristen A. Kolenz, Krista L. Benson, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Shari M. Huhndorf, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. We decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study group. After the C.R.C. 2, Harriet Tubman: A Legacy of Resistance (2014), pp. They are, of course, even more threatened than Black women by the possibility that Black feminists might organize around our own needs. we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. @B)UH3Qd`-2 HCY=\4D-' 2] endstream endobj 226 0 obj <> endobj 227 0 obj <> endobj 228 0 obj <>stream We believe that the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody elses oppression. The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. How is the name of the group related to Harriet Tubman? The work to be done and the countless issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face. 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. We decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study group. In her introduction to Sisterhood is Powerful Robin Morgan writes: I havent the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power. THE COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE: The Combahee River Collective Statement, copyright 1978 by Zillah Eisenstein. Thats right out of the Black feminist playbook.. Both are essential to the development of any life. 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. Evictions and foreclosures in the U.S. could trigger a new wave of infection and illnessbut its not too late to act. But they were not only reacting to the deficits they found in organizations led by white women and Black men. 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. Do you find this information helpful? mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, Indicates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries of bondage in the Western hemisphere. 239-249, Meridians, Vol. 190-222, African American Review, Vol. [2]. The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( / kmbi / km-BEE) [1] was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. Instead, they argued that Black womenand all oppressed peoplehad the right to form their own political agendas, because no one else would. 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. 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 was anything but divisive. Learn. During our years together as a Black feminist collective we have experienced success and defeat, joy and pain, victory and failure. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. Everything about themfrom whom you traveled with to what you atewas state determined. We had been reading about divisions within the feminist movement in the late nineteen-sixties and early nineteen-seventies, and the emergence of a body of thought captured in the framework of Black feminism. The Combahee River Collective was a small organization, but it involved some of the luminaries of Black feminism: Barbara Smith and her twin sister, Beverly Smith, as well as Demita Frazier, Cheryl Clarke, Akasha Hull, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Chirlane McCray, and Audre Lorde. Issues and projects that collective members have actually worked on are sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape and health care. 1 / 2. The value of men and women can be seen as in the value of gold and silverthey are not equal but both have great value. 1100 Words5 Pages. After a period of months of not meeting, we began to meet again late in the year and started doing an intense variety of consciousness-raising. In the sixties and seventies, fighting for the rights of queer people was considered radical activism. Black womens extremely negative relationship to the American political system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. We have also done many workshops and educationals on Black feminism on college campuses, at womens conferences, and most recently for high school women. Demonstrations following the murder of Floyd enter their third week. A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political. 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. The C.R.C. [3] Mumininas of Committee for Unified Newark, Mwanamke Mwananchi (The Nationalist Woman), Newark, N.J., 1971, pp. The Combahee River Collective was a Black Feminist Lesbian organization that was active between 1974 and 1980. This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. 85, No. Black womens extremely negative relationship to the American political system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. 27, No. 16 minutes. We hope you find it a valuable resource for yourself, and for students. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like interlocking, manifold, inroads and more. The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. Black feminists and many more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence. 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. As Smith put it, These people were looking at the situation and saying, What we have here is not working. The women of the C.R.C. Currently we are planning to gather together a collectIon of Black feminist writing. Much of what is meant by identity politics in its contemporary idiom is simply representationthe presence of Black, queer, gendered, and classed bodies with almost no attention paid to their political commitments. We must realize that men and women are a complement to each other because there is no house/family without a man and his wife. The claims that socialism was for white people were an affront to a long lineage of Black communists and socialists here in the United States.