Combahee River Collective

The Combahee River Collective Statement was developed by a "collective of Black feminists...involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics, while...doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements..."[7][18]

Members of the collective describe having a feeling of creating something which had not existed previously. Demita Frazier described the CRC's beginnings as "not a mix cake", meaning that the women involved had to create the meaning and purpose of the group "from scratch."[19] In her 1995 essay "Doing it from Scratch: The Challenge of Black Lesbian Organizing", which borrows its title from Frazier's statement, Barbara Smith describes the early activities of the collective as "consciousness raising and political work on a multitude of issues", along with the building of "friendship networks, community and a rich Black women's culture where none had existed before."[19]

The CRC sought to address the failures of organizations like the NBFO and build a collective statement to enable the analysis of capitalism's oppression of Black women, coming to the conclusion for a reformation to meet the needs for those significantly oppressed; and by doing this it would liberate everyone.[11] This was not an academic exercise, rather the CRC sought to create a mechanism for Black women to engage in politics. The catalyst for this engagement were the failures of organizations like the NBFO to successfully address the oppression Black women faced on issues like sterilization, sexual assault, labor rights, and workplace rights. This alienation as well as the domination of the Black liberation movement by Black men, led members of the CRC to reimagine a politics that engaged these issues.[11]

Throughout the mid-1970s members of the Combahee River Collective met weekly at the Women's Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[20]

The Collective held retreats throughout the Northeast between 1977 and 1979 to discuss issues of concern to Black feminists. Author Alexis De Veaux, biographer of poet Audre Lorde, describes a goal of the retreats as to "institutionalize Black feminism" and develop "an ideological separation from white feminism", as well as to discuss "the limitations of white feminists' fixation 'on the primacy of gender as an oppression.'"[21]

The first "Black feminist retreat" was held in July 1977 in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Its purpose was to assess the state of the movement, to share information about the participants' political work, and to talk about possibilities and issues for organizing Black women."[2] "Twenty Black feminists...were invited (and) were asked to bring copies of any written materials relevant to Black feminism—articles, pamphlets, papers, their own creative work – to share with the group. Frazier, Smith, and Smith, who organized the retreats, hoped that they would foster political stimulation and spiritual rejuvenation."[2]

The second retreat was held in November 1977 in Franklin Township, New Jersey, and the third and fourth were scheduled for March and July 1978.[2] "After these retreats occurred, the participants were encouraged to write articles for the Third World women's issue of Conditions, a journal edited by Lorraine Bethel and Barbara Smith."[2] The importance of publishing was also emphasized in the fifth retreat, held July 1979, and the collective discussed contributing articles for a lesbian herstory issue of two journals, Heresies, and Frontiers.[2]

"Participants at the sixth retreat...discussed articles in the May/June 1979 issue of The Black Scholar collectively titled The Black Sexism Debate...They also discussed the importance of writing to Essence to support an article in the September 1979 issue titled I Am a Lesbian by Chirlane McCray, who was a Combahee member...The seventh retreat was held in Washington, D.C., in Feb. 1980."[2]

The final statement was based on this collective discussion, and drafted by African-American activists Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier and Beverly Smith.[3]

The Combahee River Collective Statement was separated into four chapters: The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism; What We Believe; Problems in Organizing Black Feminists; and Black Feminist Issues and Projects.

This chapter of the CRC statement traces the origin and trajectory of Black feminism. It situates the CRC within the larger Black feminist movement. The CRC presented itself as rooted in the historical activism of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, as well as many unknown activists "who have 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."[22] The CRC framed contemporary Black feminism as a genesis built upon the work of these activists. The Black feminist presence in the larger second wave American feminist movement resulted in the formation of separate Black feminist groups such as the National Black Feminist Organization as the needs of Black feminists were not met by mainstream organizations. The CRC also stated that it was the involvement of Black feminists in the Black Liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s which impacted CRC members' ideologies and led to disillusionment with those movements. It mentions how this genesis is inherently a personal one for black women, tying into childhood experiences where one realizes the harsh reality of both racism and sexism. This keeps black women into looking deeper into their experiences and political analysis feminism uses in order to dismantle the system that oppresses them. It also addresses the development that occurred as a result of World War II, allowing its following generation financial and educational access not granted previously; through the use of tools tokenism has granted them to effectively fight the oppressor.

This chapter also introduced the CRC's belief that the oppression that Black women endured was rooted in interlocking oppressions. As Black women, the Collective argued that they experience oppression based on race, gender, and class. Further, because many of the women were lesbians, they also acknowledged oppression based on sexuality as well. The Collective states its basis and active goals as "committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual and class oppression" and describes its particular task as 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."[7][18]

This chapter of the CRC statement details what is identity politics and how it functions. The CRC's meaning of the term is that Black women had a right to formulate their own agenda based on the material conditions they faced as a result of race, class, gender, and sexuality.[23]

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 chapter also details the CRC's belief that the destruction of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy is necessary for the liberation of oppressed peoples.[23] The CRC identified as socialists and believed that work must be organized for the collective benefit of all people, not for the benefit of profit.[23] To this end, the CRC was in agreement with Marx's theory as it was applied to the material economic relationships he analyzed.[23] The CRC did not advocate for lesbian separatism as they felt it left out others who were valuable to the movement.[23]

It is well described how Black women at one point in time were almost sidelined by the women's movement which began to gain momentum. On the other hand, they also seemed left out of the Black movement, probably due to their genders. They point out sexual politics are as equally pervasive in their lives as is class and race. The main focus is the idea that it is impossible to separate race, sex, and class because all are the fundamental basis of the life of a black woman, and to recognize that “black women are inherently valuable” [Combahee River Collective, Pg. 503] [24]

The Combahee River Collective notes that Black women are often looked down upon and that many individuals have a misconception that Black women simply want greater power. However, Black women, regardless of status or ethnicity, simply want to be included and treated properly. Black feminists all shared the idea that all Black women are intrinsically important, that their independence is necessary, and that they must share equal value and recognition with others. Ultimately, the entire purpose of the important anti-discrimination movement is inclusion rather than differentiation or exclusion, and it is the only way through which Black women can effectively tackle oppression and destroy it from its core. It is an extremely difficult journey for Black women, but their desires are relatively simple, namely to be accepted and included. Black women don’t want any special rights, they only want to be accepted and acknowledged at the same level as all other humans and citizens of society.

This chapter traces the problems and failures of organizing around Black feminism. The CRC believed that the fact that they were fighting to end multiple forms of oppression simultaneously, rather than just one form of oppression, was a major source of difficulty.[23] The CRC also believed that because of its position as Black lesbian women, its members could not rely on having access to racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privileges.[23]

The CRC also believed that they experienced the psychological toll of its fight differently because of the "low value placed upon Black women's psyches in this society."[23] In this view, the members of the CRC saw themselves as being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Members of the organization suggests that the existence of being a black women in this world, they were already damaged people. They looked into Michele Wallace's "A Black Feminist's Search for Sisterhood," addressing classic isolation Black feminists face.[25]

Because of this positioning, the CRC wrote that, "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."[23] Its belief in this statement also relies on its previous contention that the liberation of all peoples will be delivered with the destruction of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy.[23]

The CRC's focus on the liberation of Black women also led to negative reactions by Black men. The CRC believed that because of this focus, Black men felt that "they might also be forced to change their habitually sexist ways of interacting with and oppressing Black women."[23] This reaction by Black men also proved problematic in organizing Black feminists. Most of these women cannot push back against both sexism and racism, disrupting any sort of stability currently had, these struggles intimidate and stunt the growth of autonomous Black Women's movement.

The chapter concludes by discussing some of the problems encountered within the group itself; not having a strategy for organizing or focusing. It notes that the group experienced a period of inactivity and disaccord due to a “lesbian-straight split” as well as differences in class and politics.[23] After many members decided to stop attending, the group shifted focus and became a study group, with one of their primary goals being to gather a collection of Black feminist works.[23]

This (final) chapter of the CRC statement, affirms that the CRC was committed to improving the lives of all women, third world, and working people.[23] The CRC stated, "We are of course particularly committed to working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression."[23] The chapter details how this may apply in many ways around the world. Its members have worked on many projects dealing with abortion rights, abuse of sterilization, health care, physical and sexual violence against women.

This chapter also details how the CRC had started to publicly address the racism inherent in the white women's movement. The CRC believed that white women involved in the feminist movement had made little effort to combat or understand their own racism. Moreover, the CRC believed that these women must have "a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and Black history and culture.[23] While the CRC acknowledged that this work was the responsibility of white women, they would work by demanding accountability of these white women toward this end.

In this final chapter it includes that they do not support stepping others to achieve progress, as this would go against their vision and create a process as a nonhierarchical collective towards their revolutionary society. They believe to ensure this one must practice being self critical and continuously examining politics as they develop.

The Combahee River Collective Statement is referred to as "among the most compelling documents produced by Black feminists",[10] and Harriet Sigerman, author of The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941 calls the solutions which the statement proposes to societal problems such as racial and sexual discrimination, homophobia and classist politics "multifaceted and interconnected."[26]

In their Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, M. E. Hawkesworth and Maurice Kogan refer to the CRCS as "what is often seen as the definitive statement regarding the importance of identity politics, particularly for people whose identity is marked by multiple interlocking oppressions".[9]

Much of what the CRC contributed politically has been taken for granted by feminist politics.[11] Smith and the CRC have been credited with coining the term identity politics, which they defined as "a politics that grew out of our objective material experiences as Black women."[27] In her essay "From the Kennedy Commission to the Combahee Collective: Black Feminist Organizing, 1960–1980", Duchess Harris credits the "polyvocal political expressions of the Black feminists in the Combahee River Collective (with) defin(ing) the nature of identity politics in the 1980s and 1990s, and challeng(ing) earlier 'essentialist' appeals and doctrines..."[27]

While the CRC did not coin the term intersectionality, it was the first to acknowledge interlocking systems of oppression which reinforce each other.[11] The Collective developed a multidimensional analysis recognizing a "simultaneity of oppressions"; refusing to rank oppressions based on race, class and gender.[28] According to author and academic Angela Davis, this analysis drew on earlier Black Marxist and Black Nationalist movements, and was anti-racist and anti-capitalist in nature.[29]

In Roderick Ferguson's book Aberrations in Black, the Combahee River Collective Statement is cited as "rearticulating coalition to address gender, racial, and sexual dominance as part of capitalist expansion globally".[30] Ferguson uses the articulation of simultaneity of oppressions to describe coalition building that exists outside the organizations of the nation-state.

The Combahee River Collective introduced the idea of an interlocking system of oppression. It argued that various oppressions such as racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and classism are interrelated and must be addressed as a whole. They also believed that Black feminism was the logical political movement to fight against these simultaneous oppressions. As black lesbians, their oppression could not be singularly categorized into racism, sexism or homophobia, they were identities that collectively contributed to the oppression of black women. The Combahee River Collective mentions that "We also often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously".[31] The CRC Statement argues that one problem in organizing Black feminists is that they fight against a range of forms of oppression, unlike white feminism and the broad civil rights movement each of which fights against one form of oppression. Today, African American women still face an interlocking system of oppression. For instance, they face both a race wage gap and a gender wage gap.[32] The CRC also mentions that "Black feminists and many more Black women who do not define themselves as feminists have all experienced sexual oppression as a constant factor in our day-to-day existence"[33] As wage gaps of African American woman proves, black woman experience the interlocking system of oppressions in their everyday life.

The CRC emphasized a fundamental and shared belief that "Black women are inherently valuable, that...(their) liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because of (their own) need as human persons for autonomy..."[18] and expressed a particular commitment to "working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression..."[7][18] The CRC sought to "build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression."[40]

Black women's liberation seeks to dismantle these intersecting systems of oppression and create a more equitable society; seeking to empower Black women to reclaim their agency and assert their rights, autonomy, and self-determination. It envisions broader social transformation that benefits not only Black women but also their communities and society as a whole and challenge societal expectations, stereotypes, and constraints that limit Black women's choices, opportunities, and overall well-being. By challenging and dismantling intersecting systems of oppression, these movements contribute to creating a more just, inclusive, and equitable society for everyone.

Black feminism is a feminist movement that focuses on Black women and their rights.

The Black feminist movement addresses Black women's unique experience of discrimination and oppression.[7] Often, the feminist movement focuses on white, upper-class women and does not include other races, ethnicities, sexualities, economic classes, and other axes of oppression. [41] The Black feminist movement gives Black women support and a group that fights for them directly.

The Black feminist movement emphasized the importance of Black women defining and representing themselves, challenging dominant narratives and stereotypes. It called for autonomy in shaping their own agendas and strategies for activism.

Black feminism centered the experiences and perspectives of Black women, it emphasized the need to analyze oppression through an intersectional lens and to prioritize the liberation of all marginalized groups; the significance of identity and shared experiences in building solidarity among marginalized groups. It advocated for alliances between various oppressed communities to challenge systems of power and work towards collective liberation.

Black feminists played a big role in the civil rights movement and more recently in the Black Lives Matter movement.[42] Although these movements made great strides for Black people, the unique problems of Black women are often left behind. The Black feminist movement is still important.