20th Century African American Women

"The USPS situation is very serious because we need a national postal service. That’s also just an extension of the whole conservative movement’s attack on public services, period. It’s tied to the elections, but it’s also just about this whole effort to try and privatize everything. That’s why having a systemic analysis is really important—because then you understand the throughline with all of those things and how all of those things are connected."

"Y'all the issue is whiteness. You can try to cut it all these different ways. But the common denominator, through-line, consistent factor & persistent conflict is whiteness. Until folks are ready to confront what whiteness is, its construct & function, we are stuck here. You can approach it from whatever angle you want & discuss religion, imperialism, capitalism, colonialism, whatever you want. You're not getting anywhere without an analysis of whiteness because whiteness is what the rest has been constructed around."

"If you’re trying to find your entry point to the modern movement, I encourage you to identify what issue you’re most passionate about and what talents and skills you want to bring to the fold. Before starting, see if there’s anyone already doing similar work and consider joining up with them so as not to replicate work that’s already being done. If no one is doing what you feel needs to be done, then take it on yourself. Having a community of fellow activists around you is also key to having a network of support and for building collectively."

"We want to be careful, especially as the idea of taking down these monuments becomes more mainstream. The establishment will try to co-opt it and repackage it in a certain kind of way. We have to be careful that we don’t allow them to do that, because what they’ll do is take the monuments down and say, “Oh, we’ve solved racism. Let’s carry on.” At the same time, the monuments are significant, or else it wouldn’t be such an issue. There wouldn’t be such a showdown over whether or not to take it down. You wouldn’t have people fighting so vehemently to keep these Confederate monuments in place because they do mean something. It’s an ideological battle. There’s a reason why, particularly throughout the South, in front of every county courthouse, you have this same Confederate soldier monument. It’s supposed to send a message that even though the Confederacy lost the war, white power is still the order of the day in the South. I don’t see a scenario where all of these issues are resolved, we’re on the other side of systemic racism, and we still have monuments of the Confederacy up. Erecting the monuments was part of the colonization process all around the world—a part of the way that they indicated that we are in control and the way to constantly send the message that they’re in control. So that is a part of the process. Taking down monuments to [Christopher] Columbus and these other colonial figures is a part of the decolonization process."

"The casual nature with which they replay the murder video at all hours of the day on tv says so much about the entire society"

"The other thing I have pointed out is this whole narrative around peaceful protests. When it all first started out, people were peacefully protesting and the cops were tear-gassing them. The establishment was not out in front saying, “Oh, don’t tear gas the protestors.” People started looting, they started burning things down, and then the establishment was, “Oh, no, we embrace peaceful protest.” Their primary concern is always commerce and continuing with capitalism and the status quo, everyday business, and protecting property. That’s always the primary concern above anything else."

"in the long history of social justice, freedom fighters were always blamed for stirring the trouble up, because, you know, the problem’s not there until we acknowledge it."

"one of the things that was so tough about the immediate aftermath of the (Charleston) massacre was not just the violence itself, but the apparent, like, obfuscation about what had actually just happened, that it was a terrorist attack. You know, there were a lot of things being thrown out. Yes, it’s an issue of gun violence. You know, yes, it’s an issue of, you know, the church being targeted. But it’s specifically a black church. And I think it’s important that we not remove it from the historical context, like really understand what that means. This exists in a long line of terrorist attacks against African Americans in this country. That’s what domestic terrorism looks like in the United States."

"so often these events happen, and we remove them from any kind of context. And so, you know, if—maybe the CVS burning does look like a, you know, really horrible thing, but you’re not considering that this is a business that exists within an oppressed neighborhood where the people own nothing. They don’t really benefit a whole lot from this economic situation. They’ve been protesting for a long time, and they’ve gone unheard. And then you have all these black churches that are historically targeted because they are centers of black organization, and that’s important to understand."

"not everybody that came together to do this action is coming from that Christian perspective. But, for me personally, absolutely 100 percent, I mean, I do believe that all men are created equal, with inalienable rights endowed by our creator, absolutely. And that flag is an affront to that value. And for people who, you know, think that there’s some kind of confusion about that, you can go back and read what was written by the people who created the Confederacy. They make it very clear that they seceded because they disagreed with that precept behind the Constitution. They don’t believe that all people are created equal."

"I don’t think that that symbol deserves the dignity of debate. It doesn’t deserve that. It’s a flag of treason, and it’s a flag of hatred."

"Taking the long view is important. The generations need to converse. The elders who once battled to integrate schools must listen to the young people who are now battling forces that funnel them from classrooms into prisons. The younger generation needs to understand how the modern movement is built upon every black-freedom effort that preceded it."

"In my current work as a community organizer in North Carolina, the other activists and I operate by a principle we refer to as “seven generations.” The concept, which we adapted from the Iroquois Confederacy, means we understand that the work we’re doing has gone on for seven generations and will continue for seven more. The movement lives because of the many people, places, and generations that breathe life into it."

"I come from the South. Like a lot of people, especially a lot of African Americans, my ancestors came through Charleston, a slave market. And so, the Confederate flag is a symbol of, you know, folks trying to kind of hold us into the place of bondage that we had been before and our struggle the past 150 years of trying to come out of that place. And so, it was—I’m sure I was like a lot of people, sitting at home, looking at the flag flying, I mean, wished I could just take that down, you know, but had no idea if it was possible and how possible it would be. I had even contemplated just on my own just attempting to climb it, knowing full well that I wouldn’t make it up the pole, and just let them arrest me, just to make that statement. I mean, that’s how strongly I felt about it. And so, then, when I ended up connecting with other activists there in North Carolina and found out that, you know, there were people who actually did know how to plan for how we could possibly scale the pole—and, you know, there were many roles to fill in the plan, and one of course included needing someone to actually climb up. And, of course, that was a high risk of arrest, we knew. And so, after some prayer and really thinking about it, I decided to volunteer."

"we believed in the need for a movement led by young people. After all, it was primarily black and Latino youths who were being targeted and killed by the criminal-justice system."

"A feature of the modern movement has been an open rejection of “respectability politics”—the notion that black Americans must prove themselves “respectable” to gain equal rights. Iconic images from the 1960s show young people dressed in their finest while police dogs bite them or fire hoses knock them flat. The day before our protest in Raleigh, the reverend reminded us of this tradition and encouraged us to maintain it. But some of my colleagues raised a question: Wasn’t Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated while wearing a suit? The idea that changing our clothes would change our circumstances was troubling. Many pundits suggested that Trayvon had been killed not because of racism but because he’d been wearing a hoodie. And so wearing T‑shirts, jeans, and hoodies to protests became an intentional act of rejecting “respectability,” instead of trying to look wealthy and white."

"There’s power in naming our heroes and lifting them up. We don’t have many monuments to Black people or women—especially Black women—like, anywhere. If it weren’t significant, then it wouldn’t be an issue, right? I remember when people were like, “Oh, don’t just put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill—what is that doing? How does that address capitalism?” That’s true, but at the same time, if it didn’t have any power, then they wouldn’t have any problem with doing it. The reason that they don’t do that is because they don’t want people thinking about this revolutionary figure. Imagine if every time you saw a $20 bill, you saw Harriet Tubman and you’re reminded of slavery. You’re reminded of how we’re still struggling. There’s value in it, but I don’t want us to over-prioritize that above addressing the material conditions of our people—because, again, what the establishment will do is say, “OK, yeah, we’re going to take down a Columbus statue, put up a Harriet Tubman statue, take down this statue, put up a Frederick Douglass statue,” [and] that will become the project while people are still homeless. People are still not going to have living wages, and that [ends up] becoming the new neoliberal project."

"They just renamed a road in Chicago after Ida B. Wells, [and] that’s powerful. You see that, and you’re like, “Well, who’s Ida B. Wells?” If you didn’t know, you’re going to learn. It’s going to be a reminder of that history."

"part of why it was so important to me to do that was because, to me, that (Confederate) flag also represents just fear. You know, it’s racial intimidation. It’s fear. These are the same things that they would fly when people were marching for integration. They would be flying that flag, because it’s a sign of intimidation, which is undergirded by violence, and has been undergirded by violence ever since the failure of Reconstruction. And so, you know, that’s part of what Tamika was speaking to: To have a black woman climb up there, whether it was me or someone else, to climb up there and take that down was a strong sign of, you know, we refuse to be ruled by this fear."

"The Russian people are themselves asking how many lives Putin will sacrifice for his cynical ambitions. And they are appalled at the answer. To the Russian protesters, I say thank you – thank you – for your bravery. To the Russian soldiers sent to the front lines of an unjust, unnecessary war, I say: your leaders are lying to you. Do not commit war crimes. Do everything you can to put down your weapons and leave Ukraine. The truth is that this war was one man’s choice and one man alone: President Putin. It was his choice to force hundreds of thousands of people to stuff their lives into backpacks and flee the country. To send newborn babies into makeshift bomb shelters. To make children with cancer huddle in hospital basements, interrupting their treatment, essentially sentencing them to death. Those were President Putin’s choices. Now it’s time for us to make ours."

"People across the world have already united together in exactly the way this General Assembly must do today. Protests and vigils against Russia’s war, and in solidarity with Ukraine, marked with blue and yellow, have sprung up across the globe. These are protests for peace. From Bangkok to Budapest. From Berlin to Buenos Aires. From Sydney to Seoul. From Calgary to Cape Town. And even in Moscow and Minsk. People everywhere are standing up to call for President Putin to stop this attack."

"A lot has happened very quickly to bring us to this unique moment. It was barely a week ago when, in the dead of night, President Putin launched a full-scale invasion of our fellow UN Member State at the very moment – at the very moment – the Security Council was holding an urgent meeting attempting to foster diplomacy and de-escalation. As the Security Council discussed peace, Putin declared war. Ukraine has defended itself with great courage and vigor. As President Biden said in his State of the Union address last night, President Putin “met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.” But the brazen and indiscriminate nature of Russia’s attacks has had devastating, horrific consequences for the entire country. Russia has bombed residential apartment buildings. It has bombed sacred burial grounds. It has shelled kindergartens and orphanages and hospitals. Russia has spurred mass hunger and caused so many to flee their homes – the latest UN estimates are marching toward a million people."

"Now, at more than any other point in recent history, the United Nations is being challenged. If the United Nations has any purpose, it is to prevent war, it is to condemn war, to stop war. That is our job here today. It is the job you were sent here to do – not just by your capitals, but by all of humanity."

"This is an extraordinary moment. For the first time in 40 years, the Security Council has convened an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly. Forty years. Most of the men and women fighting in Ukraine were not even born the last time the United Nations came together in this way to unite for peace. And I would venture, that many of the people in this room were not born when that happened. But a few of the eldest Ukrainians and Russians might recall a moment like this. A moment when one aggressive European nation invaded another, without provocation, to claim the territory of its neighbor. A moment when a European dictator declared he would return his empire to its former glory. An invasion that caused a war so horrific that it spurred this organization into existence."

"Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, my fellow delegates, to all those who dedicate themselves to the noble mission of this institution: Today, we call on Russia to stop its unprovoked, unjustified, unconscionable war. We call on Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. We call on another neighbor of Ukraine, Belarus, who you just heard from, to stop supporting the war and stop allowing its territory to be used to facilitate this aggression. And today, we stand together in holding Russia accountable for its violations of international law, and to address the horrific human rights and humanitarian crisis unfolding before our very eyes."

"I became more firmly committed to feminism when I met Barbara Smith in 1975 at the Socialist Feminist Conference at Antioch College. We ran into each other as we were both leaving a session where some Marxist women were making quite homophobic statements about lesbians. I asked her, “Are you gay?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “So am I. This conference is sickening.” Anyway, I learned a great deal from Barbara in terms of her outspokenness and her courage to say, “I have such a deep commitment to feminism.” And as I began to meet other black feminists through Smith, my commitment became deeper as well."

"When contemporary feminist movement first began, feminist writings and scholarship by black women was groundbreaking. The writings of black women like Cellestine Ware, Toni Cade Bambara, Michele Wallace, Barbara Smith, and Angela Davis, to name a few, were all works that sought to articulate, define, speak to and against the glaring omissions in feminist work, the erasure of black female presence."

"the legendary African-American feminist scholar Barbara Smith, founder of the Combahee River Collective and of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press."

"My association with Aunt Lute Books began with Borderlands. I was in Minnesota for the Great Midwestern Book Show, on a panel with several writers discussing whether the writer should be an engaged writer. A couple of black male writers on the panel attacked Alice Walker and other black women writers, accusing them of emasculating black men in their writings. Then they turned on me, and the facilitator, who was inexperienced, didn't intervene. From the audience, Barbara Smith, writer and cofounder of Kitchen Table Press, spoke up on behalf of Alice Walker and all the other people. She was great."

"Insisting upon an integrated analysis and politics that recognizes that the major systems of oppression are interlocking, Barbara Smith observed that "the concept of simultaneity of oppression is... the crux of a Black feminist understanding of political reality and, I believe, one of the most significant ideological contributions of Black feminist thought.""

"Smith's chapter in Yours in Struggle, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Relationships between Black and Jewish Women," acknowledged that addressing anti-Semitism set her up to look like a "woman of color overly concerned about 'white' issues." She confessed that her experiences with Jewish women had been "terrorizing" and admitted that she was anti-Semitic, largely because she had been brought up to be suspicious of whites. But Smith charged that in Jewish women's efforts to combat anti-Semitism, they had exercised racism toward black women. She urged black women to understand that they shared commonalities with Jewish women, included being oppressed by the white majority."

"I learned a lot from the black arts movement. I loved reading black feminist thinkers on my own (outside of academia)—Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Angela Davis, June Jordan, bell hooks, etc."

"what The Combahee River Collective is most known for is that we wrote a statement, the Combahee River Collective Statement, in 1977. It was actually for a book that was edited by the wonderful antiracist and feminist scholar Zillah Eisenstein. And the book was titled Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism. So, we wrote something for the book, that she asked us to do, and the something turned out to be the Combahee River Collective Statement, which, seemingly, has stood the test of time. And many people still read it, refer to it. And, in fact, the Black Lives Matter and Movement for Black Lives, those movements actually say that they have relied upon the kinds of ideas of black women’s liberation that were in that statement."

"Today's mic-hogging, fast-talking, contentious young (and old) lefties continue to hawk little books and pamphlets on revolution, always with choice words or documents from Marx, Mao, even Malcolm. But I've never seen a broadside with "A Black Feminist Statement or even the writings of Angela Davis or June Jordan or Barbara Omolade or Flo Kennedy or Audre Lorde or bell hooks or Michelle Wallace, at least not from the groups who call themselves leftist. These women's collective wisdom has provided the richest insights into American radicalism's most fundamental questions: How can we build a multiracial movement? Who are the working class and what do they desire? How do we resolve the Negro Question and the Woman Question? What is freedom? Barbara Smith, one of the founding members of the Combahee River Collective, is among the radical voices that have addressed these questions. Since the heyday of the civil rights movement, she has been telling white people that fighting racism is necessary for their own survival and liberation, not some act of philanthropy to help the downtrodden Negroes of the ghetto. She has been telling black activists that fighting homophobia is their issue because the policing of sexuality, no matter to whom it is directed, affects everyone. And she has been sharply critical of lesbian and movements for the narrowness of their political agendas. She knows what it will take to win freedom. "As a socialist and an alert Black woman, it is clear to me that it is not possible to achieve justice, especially economic justice, and equality under capitalism because capitalism was never designed for that to be the case. The assaults from the present system necessitate that most activists work for reforms, but those of us who are radicals understand that it is possible to do so at the very same time that we work for fundamental change-a revolution.""

"("Could you speak to young activists who work around issues of identity politics, and what advice would you give them?") Well, the first thing I would say is, you’ve got to work in coalition. You cannot be so — what’s the word? — so immersed in your own particular experiences, your wonderful, multilayered, complex experiences of your identity. You can’t be so immersed in that, that you cannot look out at that person across the room, across the street, in another neighborhood, in another nation, around the globe. You cannot be so immersed in what you are experiencing that you cannot see that wider arc of a need to work for justice and do it in coalition and in solidarity with others. And I think that’s what has been lost. I think that because identity politics and black feminism and some of the things that I have actually helped to establish in academic context, I think that sometimes when they’re talked about in academic context, people don’t understand that, no, what we’re really talking about is positioning ourselves so that we can build a mass movement for positive political change and for justice. So, when people think that the only people we’re talking to are people who have the exact same list of identities that they have, I always say, “Why would I want to work with people who are just like me? That would be boring.” So, that would be my major advice, is take that risk. Take that risk of joining in coalitions, doing work on the ground where you live. Like, if you live in a city, there’s probably — there are a lot of issues, but one of the issues might likely be gun violence. Another one might be poverty or poor housing. Another one might be schools that are not of sufficient quality so that everybody has great opportunities as they grow up and become adults and get into life. See what it would be like to walk into a school board meeting. Do you see what I’m saying? Maybe you do. I bet you do, Amy. But it’s just really so important that we stretch and that we work for justice across the board. And that doesn’t mean that we can’t be in our own — you know, our own safe spaces, in our own kind of home kind of environments. We can do both."

"this country functions with white supremacy as its engine, an engine that runs so many aspects — banking, healthcare, education. All these disparities that we see, it would take quite a bit to say, “I think, you know, we need to get rid of that.”"

"you can’t talk about race in the United States without talking about class, and you can’t talk about class without talking about race. Racism, white supremacy, capitalism are absolutely intertwined. You know, it’s like a vine that has wrapped itself around a tree or another plant."

"And that’s where we are now. Do we have the political will to actually eradicate white supremacy, or do we just want to kind of nip around the edges of it and do cosmetic things? You know? Taking down the Confederate statues, very, very important, very glad that’s happening, but it doesn’t necessarily get to the material conditions of people who live under this system, nor does it address the incredible violent racism that results in people like a Jacob Blake being shot seven times in front of his tiny children at point-blank range."

"For those of you who are tired of hearing about racism, imagine how much more tired we are of experiencing it. ... The degree to which it is hard or uncomfortable for you to have the issue raised is the degree to which you know inside of yourself that you aren't dealing with the issue. ... I want to say right here that this is not a "guilt trip." It's a fact trip."

"I started writing about white supremacy earlier this summer, after George Floyd was lynched. I was so full of rage and pain, because I’ve been dealing with this ever since Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. I was 8 years old when that happened, so, of course, I could not fully understand what had actually transpired. I just knew that the people in my family, who were all from the Deep South — I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, because they were part of the Great Migration — I just knew they were very, very upset about someone named Emmett Till, and that this person was also a child, like my twin sister Beverly and me. So, as I said, I’ve been dealing with this for quite a long time, 1955 until the spring of 2020 and beyond. So, I just thought, “I’ve got to write.” I’m a writer. I just thought, “I’ve got to write about this.” What motivated me was the fact that when people were talking about these issues, either in print or in media, visual media, etc., that they never really talked about white supremacy. They would talk about race relations. They would talk about implicit bias. They would talk about needing to reform and change the culture of policing. All well and good, but they never talked about where all this mess comes from. And that’s what I wanted to write about."

"when you think about the issues of — the issue of white supremacy, it’s absolutely entwined — again, much like racial capitalism — it’s entwined with patriarchy and with homophobia and transphobia. So, you can’t really address one without the other."

"We have to look at our international situation. We have to look at our relationship to the rest of the world. We export white supremacy. Your previous guest was talking about the incredible repercussions of the United States’ ongoing so-called foreign policy, which is really war policy, and that, I think he said, there were only 11 years in the entire history of the country when we weren’t involved in warfare. What does that say about what kind of nation we are? And so much of that has been racialized. And particularly, you know, I would say, since World War II, the skirmishes, and not — I mean, they’re bigger than skirmishes — the military adventures that this nation engages in just always seems to be against populations of people of color."

"it’s important for people to know that I was born under Jim Crow. I was born in 1946, so Jim Crow was the law of the land during that time, during my growing-up years. And the reason it’s important, I think, is because it shaped very much who I was and my perspective on this project of U.S. democracy, that we’re still trying to improve."

"Black women writers have been around a long time, and they have suffered consistent inattention. Despite this reality, you hear from various sources that black women really have "it." We're getting jobs; we're getting this and that, supposedly. Yet we still constitute the lowest economic group in America. Meanwhile those of us who do not fit into the "establishment" have not been allowed a voice, and it was only with the advent of the women's movement-even though black women are in disagreement with many aspects of the women's movement-that black women began to demand a voice, as women and as blacks. I think any of us who are honest have to say this. As Barbara Smith says, "All the women were white and all the blacks were men, but some of us are still brave." Her book on black women's studies [Some of Us Are Brave], which she edited along with Gloria Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, is the first one on the subject."

"It will be six years next month since the vision of KTP (Kitchen Table Press) became a reality through the hard work of Barbara Smith and Cherrie Moraga and Myrna and the others."

"Payne Stewart had W.W.J.D. [What Would Jesus Do?]. I have W.W.M.D."

"She has a grace and graciousness about her that is singular. She is remarkably unique. She’s a stunning person. I get a little nervous talking about her because the words are so flowery. But it’s truly how I feel about her."

"She said she wanted to be unapologetically black and unapologetically a woman. My life was altered by meeting her, and that’s not something I say lightly. She is such a big part of my path taken. I think she does that for everyone."

"What can I say? When I think of her, I think of grace. She’s the most unique individual. I love Mellody Hobson."

"Far too often movements revert to a position in which membership and joint political work are based on a necessarily similar history of oppression—but this is too much like identity politics. Instead, I am suggesting here that the process of movement building be rooted not in our shared history or identity but in our shared marginal relationship to dominant power that normalizes, legitimizes, and privileges."