Combahee River Collective

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 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 entitled 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 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."[22]

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]

So much of what the CRC contributed politically has been taken for granted by feminist politics.[11] Smith and the Combahee River Collective 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."[23] 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..."[23]

While the CRC did not coin the term intersectionality, it was the first to acknowledge interlocking systems of oppression which work together reinforcing each other.[11] The Collective developed a multidimensional analysis recognizing a "simultaneity of oppressions"; refusing to rank oppressions based on race, class and gender.[24] 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.[25]

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."[26] Ferguson uses the articulation of simultaneity of oppressions to describe coalition building that exists outside of the organizations of the nation-state.

The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism chapter of the CRC statement traces the origin and trajectory of Black feminism. This chapter serves to situate the CRC within the larger Black feminist movement. The CRC presented themselves 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."[27] 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 being 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.

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 describe their 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]

The What We Believe chapter of the CRC statement detailed their definition of Identity Politics and how it functions. What the CRC believed by the term Identity Politics, is that Black women had a right to formulate their own agenda based upon the material conditions they faced as a result of race, class, gender, and sexuality.[28]

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.[28] 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.[28] To this end, the CRC was in agreement with Marx's theory as it was applied to the material economic relationships he analyzed.[28] The CRC did not advocate for lesbian separatism as they felt it left out others who were valuable to the movement.[28]

The Problems in Organizing Black Feminists chapter traced the problems and failures surrounding 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.[28] The CRC also believed that because of their position as Black lesbian women, they did not have access to racial, sexual, heterosexual, or class privilege to rely on.[28]

The CRC also believed that they experienced the psychological toll of their fight differently because of the "low value placed upon Black women's psyches in this society."[28] In this view, the members of the CRC saw themselves as being at the bottom of the social hierarchy. 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."[28] Their belief in this statement also relies on their previous contention that the liberation of all peoples will be delivered with the destruction of capitalism, imperialism, and patriarchy.[28]

The CRC's focus on the liberation of Black women also led to negative reactions of 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."[28] This reaction of Black men also proved problematic in organizing Black feminists.

The final chapter of the CRC statement, Black Feminist Projects and Issues demonstrated that they were committed to making the lives of all women, third world, and working people better.[28] 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."[28] The chapter details how this may look in many types of application around the world.

This chapter also detailed 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.[28] 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.

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 particularly 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."[34]

The group saw "Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face...."[18] and believed that "the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity."[7][18]

The statement describes "Contemporary Black feminism (as) the outgrowth of countless generations of personal sacrifice, militancy, and work by our mothers and sisters" such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, (as well as thousands upon thousands of unknown women)."[18] The work of these women has been obscured "by outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the (feminist) movement."[7][18]