''All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave'' (1982) is a landmark

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

in Black Women's Studies printed in numerous editions, co-edited by

Akasha Gloria Hull Akasha Gloria Hull (born December 6, 1944) is an American poet, educator, writer, and critic whose work in African-American literature and as a Black feminist activist has helped shape Women's Studies. As one of the architects of Black Women's St ...

Patricia Bell-Scott Patricia Bell-Scott is an American scholar of women's studies and black feminism. She is currently a professor emerita of women's studies and human development and family science at the University of Georgia. As an author, she has been widely coll ...

, and

Barbara Smith Barbara Smith (born November 16, 1946) is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, au ...

Awards

Hull received the National Institute's Women of Color Award for her contribution to this book. Her contribution to this "landmark scholarship directed attention to the lives of Black women and, combined with the numerous articles she wrote thereafter, helped remedy the emphasis within Feminist Studies on white women and within Black studies on Black men"..

Context

The interest in

black feminism Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy." Race, gen ...

was on the rise in the 1970s, through the writings of

Mary Helen Washington Mary Helen Washington (born January 21, 1941) is an African-American literary scholar who is the author of numerous books on the African-American female experience. She is best known for her influence on increasing representation of Black authors ...

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," who ...

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was aw ...

, and others. In 1981, the anthology ''

This Bridge Called My Back ''This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color'' is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa, first published in 1981 by Persephone Press. The second edition was published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: ...

'', edited by

Cherríe Moraga Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding m ...

and

Gloria E. Anzaldúa Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa (September 26, 1942 – May 15, 2004) was an American scholar of Chicana feminism, cultural theory, and queer theory. She loosely based her best-known book, ''Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza'', on her life ...

, was published and ''But Some of Us Are Brave'' was published the following year. In both anthologies, the emphasis was placed on the intersection between race and gender. The contributors argued that previous waves of feminism had focused on issues related to white women. They wanted to negotiate a large space for women of color. According to

Teresa de Lauretis Teresa de Lauretis (; born 1938 in Bologna) is an Italian author and Distinguished Professor Emerita of the History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her areas of interest include semiotics, psychoanalysis, film theory, ...

, ''This Bridge Called My Back'' and ''But Some Women Are Brave'' revealed "the feelings, the analyses, and the political positions of feminists of color, and their critiques of white or mainstream feminism" and created a "shift in feminist consciousness."de Lauretis, Teresa, "The Technology of Gender" in

Impact

In the 2000 reprint of their anthology, editors Hull, Bell-Scott, and Smith described how in 1992 black feminists mobilized "a remarkable national response" - ''African American Women in Defense of Ourselves'' - to the controversy surrounding the

nomination Nomination is part of the process of selecting a candidate for either election to a public office, or the bestowing of an honor or award. A collection of nominees narrowed from the full list of candidates is a short list. Political office In the ...

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 199 ...

to the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

against the backdrop of allegations by law professor

Anita Hill Anita Faye Hill (born July 30, 1956) is an American lawyer, educator and author. She is a professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of the university's Heller School for Social Policy and ...

, about

sexual harassment Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. Sexual harassment includes a range of actions fro ...

that became part of Thomas' confirmation hearings. Legal scholar

Kimberlé Crenshaw Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (born May 5, 1959) is an American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender iss ...

cited ''But Some of Us Are Brave'', at the beginning of her seminal 1989 paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics" in which she introduced the concept of

Intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...

. Crenshaw is known for introducing and developing

intersectional theory Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adv ...

to feminism. Crenshaw noted that it was one of the "very few Black women's studies books". She used the title ''All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave'', as her "point of departure" to "develop a Black feminist criticism". Barbara Y. Welke published her article entitled "When All the Women Were White, and All the Blacks Were Men: Gender, Class, Race, and the Road to Plessy, 1855–1914", in reference to Hull et al., in 1995 in the ''

Law and History Review ''Law and History Review'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering legal history. It was established in 1983 and is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society for Legal History, of which it is the off ...

.'' Welke wrote how Crenshaw, referring to ''But Some of Us Are Brave'', said that the title "sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis.

Contributors (writers)

* May Berry *

Lorraine Bethel Lorraine Bethel is an African-American lesbian feminist poet and author. Professional experience She is a graduate of Yale University. Bethel has taught and lectured on black women's literature and black female culture at various institutions. ...

* Martha H. Brown * Constance M. Carroll *

Combahee River Collective The Combahee River Collective ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal'', Combahee R ...

* Tia Cross * Rita B. Dandridge *

Jacquelyn Grant Jacquelyn Grant (born 1948) is an American theologian and Methodist minister who is one of the founding developers of womanist theology.Joan M. Martin, "The Notion of Difference for Emerging Women Ethics." Womanist theology addresses theology fr ...

's paper "Black women and the church" was published in the anthology. * Elizabeth Higginbotham *

Freada Klein Freada Kapor Klein (born August 26, 1952) is an American venture capitalist, social policy researcher and philanthropist. As a partner at Kapor Capital and the Kapor Center for Social Impact, she is known for efforts to diversify the technolog ...

* Jeanne-Marie A. Miller * Ramona Matthewson * Ellen Pence * Michele Russell * Joan R. Sherman *

Beverly Smith Beverly Smith (born November 16, 1946) in Cleveland, Ohio, is a Black feminist health advocate, writer, academic, theorist and activist who is also the twin sister of writer, publisher, activist and academic Barbara Smith. Beverly Smith is an inst ...

* Erlene Stetson *

Michele Wallace Michele Faith Wallace (born January 4, 1952) is a black feminist author, cultural critic, and daughter of artist Faith Ringgold. She is best known for her 1979 book ''Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman''. Wallace's writings on literature, ...

was one of the founding members of the

National Black Feminist Organization The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) was founded in 1973. The group worked to address the unique issues affecting black women in America.Wilma Pearl Mankiller. The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, Houghton Mifflin Books, 1998 ...

(NBFO) established in 1973, to respond to the unique issues faced by African-American women. Her 1975 article "A Black Feminist's Search For Sisterhood" (1975) was included in ''But Some of Us Are Brave''. *

* Ora Williams * Thelma Williams * Dora Wilson *

Jean Fagan Yellin Jean Fagan Yellin (September 19, 1930 – July 19, 2023) was an American historian specializing in women's history and African-American history, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Pace University. She is best known for her scholars ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:All the Women Are White 1982 books Black feminist books African-American feminism American anthologies Literature by African-American women Multicultural feminism Feminist theory Books about race and ethnicity The Feminist Press Books

Awards

Context

Impact

Related readings

Contributors (writers)

See also

References