The Combahee River Collective Forty Years Later: Social Healing within a Black Feminist Classroom

Abstract

We are representative of the power and potential to black feminist thought upon two generations of women of color. We were brought together as members of a course on black feminist thought and within this class the Combahee River Collective Statement played a central role in defining and transmitting the healing power of black feminist thought. This article adheres to the form, structure, and tradition of the Combahee River Collective in order to identify four topics that are of great importance to us as inheritors of a black feminist intellectual tradition.

Keywords::

• Black feminism
• Combahee River Collective
• social healing

Notes

Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2016).

“Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” in Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, edited by Beverly Guy-Sheftall (New York: The New Press, [1978] 1995), 235–39.

Ibid., 234.

Ibid., 232.

Maria Lugones, “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling and Loving Perception,” Hypatia 2 (1987): 3–19.

Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 234.

Ibid., 234.

Ibid., 237.

Ibid., 239.

Ibid., 233.

Ibid., 232.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karina L. Cespedes

Karina L. Cespedes is an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies. She was born in Havana, Cuba, and received her M.A and Ph. D. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. Her research and writing is dedicated to the study of U.S. Women of Color feminist praxis as well as Cuban tourism and sex work.

Corey Rae Evans

Corey Rae Evans is a graduate student in the department of Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University. Her current research project is dedicated to examining and providing more accurate representations of identity development and self-conception in black mixed-race women and developing a healing practice model to promote positive self-conception. Her research and writing is seeks to illuminate the voices of marginalized populations impacted by supremacist ideologies and historical trauma.

Shayla Monteiro

Shayla Monteiro is currently an undergraduate student majoring in Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies. She is politically active on campus and in her community.