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4.13 The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality
Bunk
Bunk is a shared home for the web's most interesting thinking about American history. Take a moment to read about How Bunk Works. You can find the entire article that each excerpt on Bunk is drawn from by looking for the “View on…” button below that excerpt.
This linked excerpt contains part of a 2021 interview with three of the women responsible for writing the Combahee River Collective Statement: Demita Frazier, Barbara Smith, and Beverly Smith. After reading the excerpt and reflecting on on the statement (Required Source), write down, discuss, or simply think about answers to the following questions:
- The excerpt indicates that the statement was written with an academic audience in mind. What evidence do you see of this in the statement’s language?
- Beyond what the excerpt indicates, what else would you like to know about the historical circumstances of the statement’s composition?
- What specific elements of the statement are you particularly interested in contextualizing?
- Where might you find this information?
“If Black Women Were Free”: An Oral History of the Combahee River Collective. “Here we are, a group of Black lesbian feminist anti-imperialist anti-capitalists trying to do the right thing.” Marian Moser Jones via The Nation on October 29, 2021