User:Ldonnelly1/Combahee River Collective

The Combahee River Collective (/kəmˈbiː/ kəm-BEE) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980, though it is important to note they did not operate from a lesbian separatist thought.The Collective argued that the white feminist movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and existing Black Feminist organizations were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and, more specifically, as Black lesbians.. Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, which was dominated by White women who mostly ignored or actively contributed to the issues of Black women. Delaney and Manditch-Prottas, Black studies scholars, argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement operated from a place of sexism and homophobia, with notable moments of female erasure in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and throughout the NAACP. Thus, these women, lead by Barbara Smith, finding no place in these existing movements, separated and founded the Combahee River Collective, which was dedicated to operating from a place of intersectionality (though the term would not be coined until 1989) and inclusion. The Collective are perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement, a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity politics as used among political organizers and social theorists, and for introducing the concept of interlocking systems of oppression, a key concept of intersectionality. Gerald Izenberg, Professor Emeritus of History at Washington University in St. Louis, credits the 1977 Combahee statement with the first usage of the phrase "identity politics".Through writing their statement, the CRC connected themselves to the activist tradition of Black women in the 19th Century and to the struggles of Black liberation in the 1960s.

National Black Feminist Organization[edit]
Author and activist Barbara Smith and other delegates attending the first (1973) regional meeting of the National Black Feminist Organization in New York City provided the groundwork for the Combahee River Collective with their efforts to build an NBFO Chapter in Boston. The NBFO was formed by Black feminists reacting to the failure of mainstream White feminist groups to respond to the racism that Black women faced in the United States.

They created a statement of purpose at their founding in 1973. While their statement did call out both the women’s liberation movement and the Black Liberation movement for their respective racism and sexism, they failed to address the homophobia, and specifically Lesbophobia also corrupting those movements. In the end, they emphasized unity and working together, and made sure to emphasize the validity of the two movements excluding Black women, saying things like,

“Our above ground presence will lend enormous credibility to the current Women’s Liberation Movement, which unfortunately is not seen as the serious political and economic revolutionary force that it is.”

“No one of us would minimize the pain or hardship or the cruel and inhumane treatment suffered by the black man.”

The members of the CRC, however, had a more radical vision. Their focus would be on approaching all issues and change as informed by their identities as Black lesbian women. This did not mean they would ignore the issues of other oppressed groups; they would go on to march for labor rights, and in fact their staunch Socialism was another key aspect of their perspective on which they differentiated themselves from the National Black Feminist Organization. They simply did not believe in compromising their perspective in the name of unity, and in fact believed that that was one of the key problems with movements preceding them.

In her 2001 essay "From the Kennedy Commission to the Combahee Collective", historian and African American Studies professor Duchess Harris states that, in 1974 the Boston collective "observed that their vision for social change was more radical than the NBFO", and as a result, the group chose to strike out on their own as the Combahee River Collective. Members of the CRC, notably Barbara Smith and Demita Frazier, differed from the NBFO in that they felt it was critical that the organization address the needs of Black lesbians, in addition to organizing on behalf of Black feminists. They furthered differed from the NBFO in prioritizing the issue of Black female sterilization and believing socialism must be incorporated into their vision.

Naming the collective[edit]
Further information: Raid at Combahee Ferry

The Collective's name was suggested by Smith, who owned a book called: Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Earl Conrad. She "wanted to name the collective after a historical event, rather than a single person, that was meaningful to African American women, one that emphasized their long history with, and even the ways their identities were tied up with activism. Smith noted: "It was a way of talking about ourselves being on a continuum of Black struggle, of Black women's struggle." The name commemorated an action at the Combahee River planned and led by Harriet Tubman on June 2, 1863, in the Port Royal region of South Carolina. The action freed more than 750 slaves and is the only military campaign in American history planned and led by a woman.

Developing the Statement[edit]
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...." Many of the Black feminist members had their own backgrouds and scholarship outside of the CRC, and thus brought a variety of thought and experience to the table. Barbara Smith had experience protesting in the anti-war movement, where she says she experienced both racism from the white-dominated movement, but also censure from the Black community, who thought anti-war protests were a white thing to care about, and that she, as a Black woman, should be focused on fighting racism. Demita Frazier came from the Black Panther movement. In How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, a book edited by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor documenting the origins of the CRC and its influence on Black feminism, Barbara Smith talks about how Sharon Bourke, in particular, brought a lot to the group and help influenced their beliefs because of her experience working at the Institute for the Black World, which made her, as Smith puts it, was a “well-educated Marxist”. Thus, the CRC was, precisely because of all of its members and all of the experience they were bringing in, able to be the radical Socialist Black Feminist lesbian-inclusive organization that it was.

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." 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."

The CRC Statement was developed in order to call attention to such interlocking oppressions that were dismissed in society. “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 manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.”

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, while also calling for society to be reorganized based on the collective needs of those who it most oppresses, namely, Black women. 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 and traditional White feminism 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 and responded to these by leading from the perspective of black women.

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

The Collective held a total of seven Black feminist retreats throughout the Northeast between 1977 and 1979 to discuss issues of concern to Black feminists. Thousands of women would attend in order to create leadership roles to spread Black Feminism. Thousands of women would attend in order to create leadership roles to spread Black Feminism. It is important to note, it was a sisterhood, not a hierarchical system of leadership, as well as the retreats were intended to be for healing and spirituality purposes. 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.'"

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." "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." Spirituality is an element of Black feminism that can be seen throughout the various sects of it, such as Afrocentric womanism. While traditional white feminism sometimes does contain elements of spirituality, the history of Black feminism's relationship with spirituality is more deeply entwined. Whereas white feminism's relationship with spirituality tends to rely on borrowing from other cultural traditions, Black feminism does not because Black and African cultures have their own spiritual traditions. Thus, it is important not to gloss over the elements of spiritual rejuvenation that the Smith explained was a part of their activism and retreats.

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. "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." 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.

"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."

The final Statement was based on this collective discussion, and drafted by African-American activists Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier and, her twin, Beverly Smith, and Demita Frazier.

Political, social and cultural impact of the Statement[edit]
The Combahee River Collective Statement is referred to as "among the most compelling documents produced by Black feminists", 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."

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".

So much of what the CRC contributed politically has been taken for granted by traditional feminist politics. 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." 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..."

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. The Collective developed a multidimensional analysis recognizing a "simultaneity of oppressions"; refusing to rank oppressions based on race, class and gender, a break from common practice. 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.

In Roderick Ferguson's, an African American and women’s studies scholar and author’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." Ferguson uses the articulation of simultaneity of oppressions to describe coalition building that exists outside of the organizations of the nation-state.

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

Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism[edit]
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." 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. Black women who wanted to join activists groups at the time experienced sexism and erasure within the Black Liberation movement, and racism and erasure within the feminist movement. 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."

What We Believe[edit]
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 not only a right to formulate their own agenda based upon the material conditions they faced as a result of race, class, gender, and sexuality, but also their very identity and the experiences they had because of it pushed them to make their own agenda, as their needs were not being met.

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. While Beverly Smith spent time in Congress, she noticed that many of the cases brought forth came to the conclusion that their oppression was deeply rooted in capitalism. If kept under the confines of capitalism, black women would be unable to be free. Black women are historically behind in economic freedom, capitalism playing a role in such. Slaves once being once considered capital, white owners were able to profit off of them in a capitalistic society. After slavery had ended, segreation laws were put into place, with a harmful affect on the Black community. Due to racist laws to block actual freedoms, they were unable to take out mortgages, own land, and the historic racism in banking had set them back decades in obtaining economic freedom. Women faced the brunt, as past racist and sexist policies as well as systematic racism has led to an immense wealth gap still felt today. Class is an important factor tying into identity politics, and there are very few “elite” wealthy Black women who have escaped capitalist oppression. 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. To this end, the CRC was in agreement with Marx's theory as it was applied to the material economic relationships he analyzed. The CRC did not advocate for lesbian separatism as they felt it left out others who were valuable to the movement, although it was something they considered.

Problems in Organizing Black Feminists[edit]
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. 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.

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." 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." , as Black women’s freedom would necessitate the destruction of racism, sexism, and classism. 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.

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." This reaction of Black men also proved problematic in organizing Black feminists. Beverly Smith believed while both black men and women shared the issue of racism, they experience such differently due to gender. She advocated that black men should share interest in the struggle of Black women as their interests were tied together,  but many Black men instead advocated for Black women focusing on the issues that united them: racism, and dropping their complaints of sexism for the time being. While the CRC took the perspective that everything-- all systems of oppression-- must be addressed at once, Black men often took the perspective that it is better to combine efforts to take down one issue at a time.

Black Feminist Projects and Issues[edit]
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, which at the time referred not necessarily to economically disadvantaged countries, but people whose history is linked with being colonized, and working people better. 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." 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. 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.

Significance of the Term "Third World Women"
At the time the statement was written, Black women referred to themselves as third world women, as opposed to todays more popular "women of color". The significance of this difference is the inherent solidarity it draws between Black American women and all third world women across the globe. They used this term because, as Barbara Smith explains in How We Get Free, Black women saw themselves as "being internally colonized". To justify slavery, which was a part of colonialism, racism was created. Thus, Black women's oppression had its roots in colonialism, and thus they referred to themselves as "third world women". Understanding this clarifies the CRC's point that if Black women were free all would be free, because then tackling Black women's oppression would mean addressing not only racism, sexism, and classism/capitalism, but also colonialism, and all its lingering effects. It is also significant because it expands Black feminism to a philosophy that can be applied globally.

Other political work[edit]
In the encyclopedia Lesbian Histories and Cultures, contributing editor Jaime M. Grant contextualizes the CRC's work in the political trends of the time.

The collective came together at a time when many of its members were struggling to define a liberating feminist practice alongside the ascendence of a predominantly white feminist movement, and a Black nationalist vision of women deferring to Black male leadership.

Mainstream feminism had disregarded issues predominately affecting Black women, thus the Black feminist movement stepped in to advocate for the issues being dismissed. The Combahee River Collective advocated for issues such as forced sterilization againist Black, rape and other violences againist women, and health care. They advocated frequently against domestic abuse, and were one of the first movements to protest frequently for reproductive rights. Despite being a collective group of women who mainly identified as lesbian or queer, they made vast contributions to the reproductive rights movement. The CRC was also involved in special cases, such as attempting to free Ella Ellison, a falsely imprisoned Black woman.

Grant believes the CRC was most important in the "emergence of coalition politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s [...] which demonstrated the key roles that progressive feminists of color can play" in bridging gaps "between diverse constituencies, while also creating new possibilities for change within deeply divided communities..." She notes that, in addition to penning the statement, "collective members were active in the struggle for desegregation of the Boston public schools, in community campaigns against police brutality in Black neighborhoods and on picket lines demanding construction jobs for Black workers."

Further information on school desegregation in Boston: Boston busing desegregation

The collective was also politically active around issues of violence against women, in particular the murder of twelve Black women and one white woman in Boston in 1979. According to Becky Thompson, associate professor at Simmons University in Boston and author of A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism, the Boston Police Department and the media "attempted to dismiss the murders [...] based on the notion that (the women) were alleged to be prostitutes and therefore not worthy of protection or investigation."

In a 1979 journal entry, Barbara Smith wrote:

That winter and spring were a time of great demoralization, anger, sadness and fear for many Black women in Boston, including myself. It was also for me a time of some of the most intensive and meaningful political organizing I have ever done. The Black feminist political analysis and practice the Combahee River Collective had developed since 1974 enabled us to grasp both the sexual-political and racial-political implications of the murders and positioned us to be the link between the various communities that were outraged: Black people, especially Black women; other women of color; and white feminists, many of whom were also lesbians.

Smith developed these ideas into a pamphlet on the topic, articulating the need "to look at these murders as both racist and sexist crimes" and emphasizing the need to "talk about violence against women in the Black community."Black women when faced with sexist and racist crimes, could only file reports under one or the other. There was no option to file for both harassments. This issue further promoted the idea of interlocking oppressions.

In a 1994 interview with Susan Goodwillie, Smith noted that this action moved the group out into the wider Boston community. She commented that "the pamphlet had the statement, the analysis, the political analysis, and it said that it had been prepared by the Combahee River Collective. That was a big risk for us, a big leap to identify ourselves in something that we knew was going to be widely distributed."

Historian Duchess Harris believes that "the Collective was most cohesive and active when the murders in Boston were occurring. Having an event to respond to and to collectively organize around gave them a cause to focus on..."

Importance of Black women's liberation[edit]
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...." and expressed a particularly commitment to "working on those struggles in which race, sex, and class are simultaneous factors in oppression...." The CRC sought to "build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression." The CRC depicted that by freeing the most oppressed group in society, that all would then be free. Thus, by freeing black women of the interlocking oppressions they face, all people of oppression would have to become free.

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

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)." The work of these women has been obscured "by outside reactionary forces and racism and elitism within the (feminist) movement."

Endings[edit]
The Collective held their last network retreat in February 1980, and disbanded some time that year, but many of its members continued doing activist work, including its founder, Barbara Smith, who remains active today to this day. After leaving the CRC, Barbara Smith continued her work at the KItchen Table, a press for women of color that she created in response to negative experiences publishing at white feminist presses.

Key Members and background
Beverly smith, Barbara Smith, and Demita Frazier were known as key founding members of this movement, as well as the main writers of the CRC statement. Their contributions to Black Feminist thought, reproductive rights adovcation and the forming of the CRC were substantial.

Barbra Smith is considered the founder of the CRC. Her ideas on political activism began in early adolescence, as she had been raised in a segregated society. She had attended speeches by MLK, and joined a Civil Action group. As time went on, she notes that civil rights battles changed into ones focusing on black liberation and power. She felt her identity as a black woman nationalist made her self conscious when attending such political goings. Barbra then attended the National Black Feminist Organzation meetings, which allowed her to reimerse herself in activism once more, as well as discuss issues with other women of color. While obtaining her Master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh, she became deeply involved in political activism. These being the Womens march, as well as fighting towards gay rights. Barba became well known as a scholar and supporter of women’s rights, LGBT rights, as well as assisting the working class. Due to the NBFO’s lack of communication, and the realization that Boston had a more radical approach to the political stances, she ultimately separated from the national organization to form the CRC. They felt as if the NBFO was not able to provide the resources they needed A self Identified Socialist, she took ideas from Marx while studying during her college years. These ideas were put into the CRC’s foundational thoughts.

Beverly Smith notes that it is important that her Beverly, both grew up in an all women household. She believed that watching the women do everything that needed to be done, without the outside help from men, largely contributed to the foundations of her feminist thought. Also growing up in a time of segregation, she became involved in political movements such as CORE and the school boycotts in her adolescence. Beverly studied at the University of Chicago, quite different from her sister’s experience. She advocated in the Antiwar movement, as well as a women’s liberation meeting and felt excluded due to her background. While in college, Beverly depicts meeting with the other Black students as a support group in terms of the racism they faced at the University. She was not heavily involved in politics until after obtaining her college education. After her education, she attended the NBFO and NOW meetings, which laid foundational groundwork for involvement in political activism. While moving back to Boston, she had been meeting with other Black women. Although, they had not begun to call themselves the CRC quite yet. Her background in nursing while in Boston, ultimately gave her insights on the abuse and violence women were facing, and the inspiration to develop her politics. Beverly tried to keep close contact with a Feminist Health center, and this background led to her understanding of the relationship between women and healthcare.

Deminta Frazier was a key component to drafting the CRC statement, and was highly involved with the organization as a whole. Growing up in a segregated Chicago, she was exposed to racism and sexism. Deminta was also involved in the Anti-war movement, and got kicked out of school during a walk out in protest. Her “political awakening”, as she calls it, happened around the ripe age of sixteen. After reading “Woman Power”, by Celestine Ware, she identified herself as a feminist. Deminta went to get involved with YSA, but found it problematic and white-based, unanswering her questions she posed. She became involved with the women’s reproductive rights movement, and admired the CRC for doing the same despite being lesbian women. She realized white feminists were not going to deal with the issues of sexism and racism, and that Black feminism has to be created. She came to the conclusion among Barbra and Beverly smith, that they wanted a different structure than what the NBFO offered. The socialist perspective in the CRC, she states, was influenced by the ideas of Marxism, and the need to speak on economic terms such as socioeconomics.

These three women ultimately laid the groundwork for Black Feminist thought, expanded the term Intersectionality and Idenity politics, and created a key group acknowledged for their work in feminist issues decades later.

Collective members and participants[edit]
The Combahee Collective was large and fluid throughout its history. Collective members and contributors include: add in details of such/accomplishments/something interesting


 * Cheryl Clarke
 * Demita Frazier
 * Gloria Akasha Hull
 * Audre Lorde
 * Chirlane McCray
 * Margo Okazawa-Rey
 * Barbara Smith
 * Beverly Smith:
 * Helen L. Stewart