“Black feminism is the political idea that all forms of oppression, which are global and persistent, are interconnected and structural: white supremacy, racism, heterosexism, ableism, class disparities,” said Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, referencing bell hooks. “All of those systems of oppression are connected, and we experience them simultaneously. We have to dismantle all of those structural systems and cannot prioritize one over the other,” she said. Using this lens, Dr. Guy-Sheftall drew a long history of Black feminist activism, including Ida B. Wells and her anti-lynching campaign, the organizers of the Atlanta washerwomen’s strike of 1881, Rosa Parks’ anti-rape organizing, and of course the work of the Combahee River Collective. Her conversation with Black Work Talk co-hosts Steven Pitts and Sheri Davis, Guy-Sheftall dug into this history, the ways power functions within and outside the Black community, and how a Black feminist understanding can shape organizing praxis.
Episode Guests
Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center (since 1981) and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College. She is also an adjunct professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies, where she teaches graduate courses in their doctoral program, and a past president of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). Her anthology, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, is a foundational collection.