Discussion 1

COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE

111-A·-eLAcKFEIVl1N1ST-sTATEMiNT (197'7>___ ------j Active in the mid to late 1970s, the Combahee River Collective was a group of Black feminists in Boston Who t

their name from the guerrilla action led by Harriet Tubman that freed more than 750 slaves and is the only rnilt~

campaign in US history to have been planned and led by a woman. ary

We are a collective of Black ~eminists who h~ve been meeting together smce 1974. Durmg

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 orga­ nizations and movements. The most general state­ ment 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 inter­ locking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions ofour lives. As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppres­ sions that all women ofcolor face.

We will discuss four major topics in the paper that follows: (I) the genesis of contemporary Black feminism; (2) what we believe, i.e., the specific province of our politics; (3) the problems in orga­ nizing Black feminists, including a brief herstory ofour 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 po] · . I!rcaJ

system (a system of white male rule) has al ways

been determined by our membership in two op. pressed racial and sexual castes. As Angela Dav·

15 points out in "Reflections on the Black Woman•

Role in the Community of Slaves," Black wome~ 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, Har­ riet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, and thousands upon thousands 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 out­ growth of countless generations of personal sacri­ fice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters.

A Black feminist presence has evolved most ob­ viously 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 move­ ment from its start, but both outside reactionary 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).

Source: Republished with permission ofThe Monthly Review Press from Zillah Eisenstein, Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for

Socialise Feminism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979); permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

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29 A Black Fem i nist Stat e m ent

~ Tia Cross

Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to movements for Black liberation, par­ t icularly 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 ide­ ology, their goals, and the tactics used to achieve their goals. It was our experience and di sillusion­ ment 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 anti racist, unlike those of white women, and anti­ sexist, unlike those of Black and white men.

There is also undeniably a personal genesis for Black feminism, that is, the political realiza­ tion that comes from the seemingly personal ex­ periences of individual Black women's lives. Black feminists and many more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all expe­ rienced sexua l oppression as a constant factor in

our day-to-day existence. As children we realized that we were different from boys and that we were treated differently. For example, we were told in the same breath to be quiet both for the sake of being "lady-li ke" and to make us less objectionable in the eyes of white people. As we grew o lder we became awa re of the threat of physical and sexual abuse by men. However, we had no way of conceptual­ izing what was so apparent to us, what we knew was really happening.

Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness before becoming conscious of the con­ cepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and most importa ntly, feminism, the political analysis and pract ice that we women use to struggle against our oppression. The fact that racia l politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and sti ll does not a llow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing

30 UNTANGLING THE " F"-WORD

consciousness, to build a politics that wil_l change our lives and mevua. . blY end our oppression. Our development must also 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 ce~­ tain educational and employment options, previ­ ously closed completely to Black people. Although our economic position is still at the very bottom of the American capitalistic economy, a handful of us have been able to gain certain tools as a result of tokenism in education and employment which potentially enable us to more effectively fight our

oppression. . . . . A combined antiracist and ant1sex1st pos1t1on

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 valu­ able, that our liberation is a necessity not as an ad­ junct to somebody else's but because of our need as human persons for autonomy. This may seem so ob­ vious as to sound simplistic, but it is apparent that no other ostensibly progressive movement has ever considered our specific oppression as a priority or worked seriously for the ending of that oppression. Merely naming the pejorative stereotypes attributed to Black women (e.g., mammy, matriarch, Sapphire, whore, bulldagger), let alone cataloguing the cruel, often murderous, treatment we receive, indicates 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 are 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 em­ bodied in the concept of identity politics. We be­ lieve that the most profound and potentially the 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 revolu tionary concept because .. k. II h 1· · Iobvious from loo mg a t a t e po 1t1ca movern It 18

• " 1en1sthat have preceded us that a nyone 1s more Wo h . rt yof liberation than ourselves. We reiect Pedestal

queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To bs, recognized as human, levelly human, is enough_ e

We believe that sexual politics under Patriarch k 1• yIis as pervasive in Blac womens 1ves as are the Polj_

tics ofclass and race. We also often fi nd it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression beca1.1se

in our lives they are most often experienced simulta­

neously. We know that there is such a thing as racial­ sexual oppression which is neither so lely racial nor solely sexual, e.g., the history of rape ofBlack women by white men as a weapon of political repression.

Although we are feminists and lesb ians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not

advocate the fractionalization that white women

who are separatists demand. Our situa tion as Black people necessitates 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 a lso struggle with Black men about sexism.

We realize that the liberat ion of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political­

econom ic systems ofcapita lism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we be­ lieve the work must be organized for the collective benefit ofthose who do the work and create the prod­ ucts, and not for the profit o f 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 relationships

. . nthat takes into account the specific class posiuo of Black women who are generally margina the110 · 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

articu late the real class situation of persons who are not merely raceless, sexless workers, but for whorn racial and sexual oppression are significant deter· minants in their working/economic lives.. ··

31

A political contribution which we feel we have already made is the expansion of the femi­ nist 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 oppres­ sion out of necessity because none of these matters has ever been looked at before. No one before has ever examined the multilayered texture of Black women's lives. An example of this kind of revela­ tion/conceptualization occurred at a meeting as we discussed the ways in which our early intellectual interests had been attacked by our peers, particu­ larly Black males. We discovered that all of us, be­ cause we were "smart" had also been considered "ugly," i.e., "smart-ugly." "Smart-ugly" crystallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop our intellects at great cost to our "social" lives. The sanctions in the Black and white com­ munities against Black women thinkers are com­ paratively much higher than for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classes.

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 criti­ cism and loathing for what men have been social­ ized 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 progressive political analysis and strat­ egy, even for those who practice it, since it so com­ pletely denies any but the sexual sources of women's oppression, negating the facts of class and race.

A Black Feminist Statement

3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists During our years together as a Black feminis~ collec­ tive we have experienced success and defeat, JOYand 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 ~ill discuss some of the general reasons for the organiz­ ing problems we face and also talk specifically about the stages in organizing our own collective.

The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppres­ sion on one front or even two, but instead to ad­ dress a whole range ofoppressions. We do not have racial, sexual, heterosexual, 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 this presents in reaching politi­ cal 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 psycho­ logically and on every other level, and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change the condition of all Black women. In uA Black Feminist's Search for Sis­ terhood," Michele Wallace arrives at this conclusion:

We exist as women who are Black who are femi­ nists, 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. 1

Wallace is pessimistic but realistic in her assess­ ment of Black feminists' position, particularly in her allusion to the nearly classic isolation most ofus face. We might use our position at the bottom, however, to

32 UNTANGLING THE " F" -WORD

make a clear leap into re lutionary action. lf Black women were free, it would mean that veryon else would have to be free ince our freedom would neces­ sitate the destruction ofall the tern ofoppression.

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 sex should be a determinant of power relationships. Here is the way male and female voice 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 knowledge 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 reason­ able that the man be the head of the house because he is able to defend and protect the development of his home .. . Women cannot 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, ex­ perience 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 ofany life. 2

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 understanding ofboth sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives cannot risk struggling against them both.

The reaction ofBlack men to feminism has been notoriously negative. They are, of course, even more threatened than Black women by the possi­ bility that Black feminists might organize around our own needs. They realize that they might not only lose valuable and hard-working all ies in their struggles but that they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting

with and oppressing Black wom en . Ac

that Black feminism divides the Bl k cusatio ac str l'ls

powerful deterrents to the growth f uggle a o an te

mous Black women's movement. auton _ 0

Sti ll, hundreds of women have be different times during the three-yea en_ active at

r existe our group. And every Black woman h nee of

w 0 came out of a strongly-felt need for s came

·b·1· h d'd ome level ' poss1 1 1ty t at 1 not previously exist • of 1n her 1·r

When we first started meeting early in lie. 1974

the NBFO first eastern regional conferen after c ce, we ct·

not have a strategy 1or organizing, or even a fi 1d We just wanted to see what we had Afte 0

CUs. · r a Per·

of months of not meeting, we began to m 10d eet ag •

late in the year and started doing an intense v _a,n • . . h anetyof consc1ousness-ra1smg. T e overwhelmin , .

. g 1eehng that we had 1s that after years and years we had fi nally found each other. Although we were not d . ·

I. • l k . ct· o1ngpo 1ttca wor as a group, m 1viduals continued th . involvement in Lesbian politics, sterilization ab etr

. . h k Th' useand abort1on ng ts wor , ud World Women' s1n- ternational Women's Day activities, and suppon a . tivity for the trials ofDr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Litt!: and Inez Garcia. During our first summer, whe~ membership had dropped offconsiderably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the pos­ sibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a Black community. (There was no refuge in Boston at that time.) We also decided around that time to become an independent collective since we had seri­ ous disagreements with NBFO's bourgeois-feminist stance and their lack of a clear political focus.

We also were contacted at that time by social­ ist feminists, with whom we had worked on abor­ tion rights activities, who wanted to encourage us to attend the National Socialist Feminist Confer­ ence in Yellow Springs. One of our members did attend and despite the narrowness of the ideology that was promoted at that particular conference, we became more aware of the need for us to under­ stand ou r own economic situation and to make our

own economic analysis. In the fa ll, when some members returned, we

· ·nac­experienced several months of comparative 1

tivity and internal disagreements which were ~rSl conceptualized as a Lesbian-straight split but whJCh were also the result of class and political differ-

who were ences. During the summer those of us

33

still meeting had determined the need to do politi­ cal work and to move beyond consciousness-raising and serving exclusively as an emotional support 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 ofus 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 start­ ing a Black feminist publication. 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 orga­ nizing Black feminists as we continue to do political work in coalition with other groups.

4. Black Feminist Issues and Projects During our time together we have identified and worked on many issues of particular relevance to Black women. The inclusiveness ofour politics makes us concerned with any situation that impinges upon the lives ofwomen, 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 ex­ ample, become involved in workplace organizing at

NOTES 1. Michele Wallace, "A Black Feminist's Search

for Sisterhood," The Village Voice, July 28, 1975,

pp. 6-7.

A Black Feminist Statement

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. Orga­ nizing around welfare and daycare concerns might also be a focus. The work to be done and the count­ less issues that this work represents merely reflect the pervasiveness of our oppression.

Issues and projects that collective members have already worked on are sterilization abuse, abortion rights, battered women, rape and health care. We have also done many workshops and educationals on Black feminism on college campuses, at wom­ en'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 feminists 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 superfi­ cial comprehension of race, color, and Black his­ tory 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 re­ actionary 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 collective process and a nonhierarchical distribution of power within our own group and in our vision of a revolutionary so­ ciety. We are committed to a continual examination of our politics as they develop through criticism and self-criticism as an essential aspect ofour practice....

As Black feminists and Lesbians we know that we have a very definite revolutionary task to per­ form and we are ready for the lifetime of work and struggle before us.

2. Mumininas of Committee for Unified Newark, Mwanamke Mwananchi [The Nationalist Woman] (Newark, NJ: Mumininas ofCFUN, 1971), pp. 4-5.