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A Black Feminist Statement Author(s): The Combahee River Collective Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3/4, SOLIDARITY (FALL/WINTER 2014), pp. 271-280 Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24365010 Accessed: 18-04-2020 22:37 UTC

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A Black Feminist Statement

The Combahee River Collective

We are a collective of black feminists who have been meeting together

since 1974.1 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 organi

zations and movements. 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. The synthesis of

these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As black women we

see black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the mani

fold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.

We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (l) The gen

esis of contemporary black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific

province of our politics; (3) the problems in organizing black feminists,

including a brief herstory of our collective; and (4) black feminist issues

and practice.

1. The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism

Before looking at the recent development of black feminism, we would like

to affirm that we find our origins in the historical reality of Afro-American

women's continuous life-and-death struggle for survival and liberation.

Black women's extremely negative relationship to the American political

system (a system of white male rule) has always been determined by our

This essay originally appeared in Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism, published

by the Monthly Review Press in 1978. Reprinted with permission from the Monthly Review Press 271 Foundation. All rights reserved.

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272 The Combahee River Collective

membership in two oppressed racial and sexual castes. As Angela Y. Davis

points out in "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community

of Slaves," black women have always embodied, if only in their physical

manifestation, an adversary stance to white male rule and have actively

resisted its inroads upon them and their communities in both dramatic

and subtle ways. There have always been black women activists—some

known, like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida

B. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thou

sands unknown—who 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. Contemporary black feminism

is the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy,

and work by our mothers and sisters.

A black feminist presence has evolved most obviously in connection

with the second wave of the American women's movement beginning in

the late 1960s. Black, other Third World, and working women have been

involved in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reac

tionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement itself have

served to obscure our participation. In 1973 black feminists, primarily

located in New York, felt the necessity of forming a separate black feminist

group. This became the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).

Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements

for black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of us

were active in those movements (civil rights, black nationalism, the Black

Panthers), and all of our lives were greatly affected and changed by their

ideology, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. 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 antiracist, unlike those of white women,

and antisexist, unlike those of black and white men.

There is also undeniably a personal genesis for black feminism, that is,

the political realization that comes from the seemingly personal experi

ences of individual black women's lives. Black feminists and many more

black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experi

enced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence.

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

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A Black Feminist Statement 273

we women use to struggle against our oppression. The fact that racial poli

tics 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 define those things that make our lives what they are

and our oppression specific to us. In the process of consciousness-raising,

actually life-sharing, we began to recognize the commonality cff our expe

riences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a poli

tics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression.

Our development also must be tied to the contemporary economic

and political position of black people. The post-World War II generation

of black youth was the first to be able to minimally partake of certain edu

cational and employment options, previously closed completely to black

people. Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the

American capitalist economy, a handful of us have been able to gain cer

tain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which

potentially enable us to more effectively fight our oppression.

A combined antiracist and antisexist position drew us together initially,

and as we developed politically we addressed ourselves to heterosexism

and economic oppression under capitalism.

2. What We Believe

Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that black

women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an

adjunct to somebody else's but because of our need as human persons for

autonomy. This may seem so obvious as to sound simplistic, but it is appar

ent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered

our specific oppression a priority or worked seriously for the ending of

that oppression. The mere names of the pejorative stereotypes attributed

to black women (e.g., mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let

alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, indi

cates how little value has been placed upon our lives during four centuries

of bondage in the Western hemisphere. We realize that the only people

who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us.

Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters, and our

community, which allows us to continue our struggle and work.

This focusing upon our own oppression is embodied in the concept of

identity politics. We believe that the most profound and potentially the

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274 The Combahee River Collective

most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to

working to end somebody else's oppression. 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 politi

cal movements that have preceded us that anyone is more worthy of lib

eration than ourselves. We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten

paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.

We believe that sexual politics under patriarchy is as pervasive in black

women's lives as are the politics of class and race. We also often find it dif

ficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives

they are most often experienced simultaneously. We know that there is

such a thing as racial-sexual oppression that 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.

Although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with pro

gressive black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white

women who are separatists demand. Our situation as black people neces

sitates 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. We struggle together with black men against

racism, while we also struggle with black men about sexism.

We realize that the liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the

destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperial

ism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe the 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. Material resources

must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We

are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a

feminist and antiracist revolution will guarantee our liberation. We have

arrived at the necessity for developing an understanding of class relation

ships that takes into account the specific class position of black women

who are generally marginal in the labor force, while at this particular time

some of us are temporarily viewed as doubly desirable tokens at white

collar and professional levels. We need to articulate the real class situation

of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whom

racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their work

ing/ economic lives. Although we are in essential agreement with Marx's

theory as it applied to the very specific economic relationships he ana

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A Black Feminist Statement 275

lyzed, we know that this analysis must be extended further in order for us

to understand our specific economic situation as black women.

A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the

expansion of the feminist principle that the personal is political. In our

consciousness-raising sessions, for example, we have in many ways gone

beyond white women's revelations because we are dealing with the impli

cations of race and class as well as sex. Even our black women's style of

talking/testifying in black language about what we have experienced has a

resonance that is both cultural and political. We have spent a great deal of

energy delving into the cultural and experiential nature of our oppression

out of necessity because none of these matters have ever been looked at

before. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of black women's lives.

As we have already stated, we reject the stance of lesbian separatism

because it is not a viable political analysis or strategy for us. It leaves out

far too much and far too many people, particularly black men, women, and

children. We have a great deal of criticism and loathing for what men have

been socialized to be in this society: what they support, how they act, and

how they oppress. But we do not have the misguided notion that it is their

maleness, per se—i.e., their biological maleness—that makes them what

they are. As black women we find any type of biological determinism a

particularly dangerous and reactionary basis upon which to build a politic.

We must also question whether lesbian separatism is an adequate and pro

gressive political analysis and strategy, even for those who practice it, since

it so completely denies any but the sexual sources of women's oppression,

negating the facts of class and race.

3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists

During our years together as a black feminist collective we have experi

enced success and defeat, joy and pain, victory and failure. 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. We have

tried to think about the reasons for our difficulties, particularly since the

white women's movement continues to be strong and to grow in many

directions. In this section we will discuss some of the general reasons for

the organizing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages

in organizing our own collective.

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276 The Combahee River Collective

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. We do not have racial, sexual, het

erosexual, or class privilege to rely upon, nor do we have even the minimal

access to resources and power that groups who possess any one of these

types of privilege have.

The psychological toll of being a black woman and the difficulties these

present in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can

never be underestimated. There is a very low value placed upon black

women's psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist. As an early

group member once said, "We are all damaged people merely by virtue of

being black women." We are dispossessed psychologically and on every

other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change our condi tion and the condition of all black women. In "A Black Feminist s Search

for Sisterhood," Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion:

We exist as women who are black who are feminists, each stranded for

the moment, working independently because there is not yet an envi

ronment in this society remotely congenial to our struggle—because,

being on the bottom, we would have to do what no one else has done:

we would have to fight the world.2

Wallace is not pessimistic but realistic in her assessment of black femi

nists' position, particularly in her allusion to the nearly classic isolation

most of us face. We might use our position at the bottom, however, to

make a clear leap into revolutionary action. If black women were free, it

would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom

would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.

Feminism is, nevertheless, very threatening to the majority of black

people because it calls into question some of the most basic assumptions

about our existence, i.e., that gender should be a determinant of power

relationships. Here is the way male and female roles were defined in a black

nationalist pamphlet from the early 1970s:

We understand that it is and has been traditional that the man is the head

of the house. He is the leader of the house/nation because his knowl

edge of the world is broader, his awareness is greater, his understanding

is fuller and his application of this information is wiser.... After all, it is

only reasonable that the man be the head of the house because he is able

to defend and protect the development of his home Women cannot

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A Black Feminist Statement 277

do the same things as men—they are made by nature to function dif

ferently. Equality of men and women is something that cannot happen

even in the abstract world. Men are not equal to other men, i.e., ability,

experience, or even understanding. The value of men and women can be

seen as in the value of gold and silver—they are not equal but both have

great value. 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.

Both are essential to the development of any life.3

The material conditions of most black women would hardly lead them

to upset both economic and sexual arrangements that seem to represent

some stability in their lives. Many black women have a good understand

ing of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions

of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.

The reaction of black men to feminism has been notoriously negative.

They are, of course, even more threatened than black women by the pos

sibility that black feminists might organize around our own needs. They

realize that they might not only lose valuable and hard-working allies in

their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually

sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing black women. Accusations

that black feminism divides the black struggle are powerful deterrents to

the growth of an autonomous black women's movement.

Still, hundreds of women have been active at different times during

the three-year existence of our group. And every black woman who came,

came out of a strongly felt need for some level of possibility that did not

previously exist in her life.

When we first started meeting early in 1974 after the NBFO's first east

ern regional conference, we did not have a strategy for organizing, or even

a focus. We just wanted to see what we had. 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. The overwhelming feeling

that we had is that after years and years we had finally found each other.

Although we were not doing political work as a group, individuals contin

ued their involvement in lesbian politics, sterilization abuse and abortion

rights work, Third World Women's International Women's Day activities,

and support activity for the trials of Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and

Inez Garcia. During our first summer, when membership had dropped

off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the

possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a black community.

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278 The Combahee River Collective

(There was no refuge in Boston at that time.) We also decided around that

time to become an independent collective since we had serious disagree

ments with NBFO's bourgeois-feminist stance and their lack of a clear

political focus.

We also were contacted at that time by socialist feminists, with whom

we had worked on abortion rights activities, who wanted to encourage us

to attend the National Socialist Feminist Conference in Yellow Springs.

One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ide

ology 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.

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 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 sup

port group. At the beginning of 1976, when some of the women who had

not wanted to do political work and who also had voiced disagreements

stopped attending of their own accord, we again looked for a focus. We

decided at that time, with the addition of new members, to become a study

group. We had always shared our reading with each other, and some of us

had written papers on black feminism for group discussion a few months

before this decision was made. We began functioning as a study group and

also began discussing the possibility of starting a black feminist publica

tion. We had a retreat in the late spring, which provided a time for both

political discussion and working out interpersonal issues. Currently we are

planning to gather together a collection of black feminist writing. We feel

that it is absolutely essential to demonstrate the reality of our politics to

other black women and believe that we can do this through writing and

distributing our work. The fact that individual black feminists are living

in isolation all over the country, that our own numbers are small, and that

we have some skills in writing, printing, and publishing makes us want to

carry out these kinds of projects as a means of organizing black feminists

as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups.

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A Black Feminist Statement 279

4. Black Feminist Issues and Practice

During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues

of particular relevance to black women. The inclusiveness of our politics

makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives of

women, Third World, and working people. We are of course particularly

committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class

are simultaneous factors in oppression. 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

health care to a Third World community, or set up a rape crisis center in

a black neighborhood. Organizing around welfare or daycare concerns

might also be a focus. The work to be done and the countless issues that

this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression.

Issues and projects that collective members have actually worked on

are sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape, and health

care. We have also done many workshops and educationals on black femi

nism on college campuses, at women's conferences, and most recently for

high school women.

One issue that is of major concern to us and that we have begun to

publicly address is racism in the white women's movement. As black femi

nists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white

women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires

among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehen

sion of race, color, and black history and culture. Eliminating racism in the

white women's movement is by definition work for white women to do,

but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue.

In the practice of our politics we do not believe that the end always

justifies the means. Many reactionary and destructive acts have been done

in the name of achieving "correct" political goals. As feminists we do not

want to mess over people in the name of politics. We believe in collec

tive process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own

group and in our vision of a revolutionary society. We are committed to a

continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism

and self-criticism as an essential aspect of our practice. 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.

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280 The Combahee River Collective

Notes

1. This statement is dated April 1977.

2. Michele Wallace, "A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood," The Village

Voice, 28 July, 1975: 6-7.

3. Mumininas of Committee for Unified Newark. Mwanamke Mwananchi (The National

ist Woman), Newark, N.J., c. 1971: 4-5.

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