Abstract
We begin with an examination of the history of Black American feminism, a movement which preceded Black women’s involvement in formal American politics. Feminism, both in this section and in the text as a whole, is considered broadly, inclusive both of intentionally organized groups of women, such as the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and the Combahee River Collective, as well as acts of naming, claiming, and entering taken consciously by Black women across American history. For the sake of organization and manageability, the author has imposed a temporal boundary on the consideration of both types of Black American feminism, and opens this chapter by establishing the larger sociocultural and political context of the American landscape, which is critical for understanding what stimulants precipitated Black women feminists’ organization and action.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Geoffrey D. Borman, Sam Stringfield, and Robert E. Slavin, Title I, Compensatory Education at the Crossroads (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001) 6–8.
John E. Tropman and Alan L. Gordon, “The Welfare Threat: AFDC Coverage and Closeness in the United States” Social Forces 57 (1978) 697.
In Mary Edsall and Thomas Edsall, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992) 55–56.
E.J. Dionne, Why Americans Hate Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991) 79.
Alan S. Berger and William Simon, “Black Families and the Moynihan Report: A Research Evaluation” Social Problems 22.2 (1974) 145–161.
Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman (New York: Verso, 1976) 109.
Erskine Peters, “Some Tragic Propensities of Ourselves: The Occasion of Ntozake Shange’s ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf’” Journal of Ethnic Studies 6.1 (1978) 79–85.
Neal A. Lester, “Shange’s Men: For Colored Girls Revisited, and Movement Beyond” African American Review 26.2 (1992) 319.
Sandra H. Flowers, “For Colored Girls: Textbook for the Eighties” Black American Literature Forum 15 (1981) 51–54.
Gloria Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, Barbara Smith, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (New York: Feminist Press, 1982) 18.
David Zucchino, Myth of the Welfare Queen: A Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist’s Portrait of Women on the Line (New York: Scribner, 1997) 54–55.
Copyright information
© 2009 Duchess Harris
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Harris, D. (2009). A History of Black American Feminism. In: Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton. Contemporary Black History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623200_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623200_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37786-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-62320-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)