Black feminism

Black feminism is a school of thought stating that sexism, class oppression, gender identity and racism are inextricably bound together.The way these concepts relate to each other is called intersectionality, a term first coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.

In 1851 women’s right advocate and abolitionist Sojourner Truth gave a speech at a women’s rights convention in which challenged both racism and sexism faced by Black women when she asked “Ain’t I a Woman?” Black feminism aims to empower Black women with new and on critical ways of thinking that centered how racism and sexism worked together to create Black women’s social issues and inequalities. that arise from of mutually constructed systems of oppression 1. Women such as Sojourner Truth exemplify Black feminist activism in the nineteenth century. In 1892 another Black woman, Anna Julia Cooper published A Voice from the South, a book in which she described the importance of the voices of Black women for social change. Another exemplary Black feminist, Ida B. Wells, an activist and journalist, led a crusade against lynching during the 1890s. The work of these three and other Black women shows how Black community politics laid the foundation for social justice toward sexism from Black men, marginalization from White feminists, and disenfranchisement under White male privilege.

A significant aspect of Black feminism is intersectionality. Intersectionality refers to the way gender, race, and other social categories interact to influence an individual life outcomes.For instance, in the 1970s, a group of Black women formed the Combahee River Collective. These Black feminists saw intersectionality as integral to the distinction between their movement and that of White feminism because “the major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions” 3. During the twentieth century Black women remained active in social justice movements as Black feminism and intersectionality expanded into academic and professional discourse. Women like sociologist Patricia Hill Collins, critical race scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, and writer bell hooks are just a few examples.

References: https://www.blackfeminisms.com/black-feminism/