''How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective'' is a 2017 book edited by

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor __NOTOC__ Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an American academic, writer, and activist. She is a professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of ''From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation'' (2016). For this book, ...

about the principles involved with

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 ...

. It was published on the occasion of the Collective's 40th anniversary. In addition to the Collective's original statement, the book includes interviews with sisters

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 ...

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 ...

, and

Demita Frazier Demita Frazier is a Black Feminist, thought leader, writer, teacher, and social justice activist. She is a founding member of the Combahee River Collective (CRC). While it has been more than forty years since the Combahee River Collective released ...

, who were the Collective's co-founders, as well as interviews with

Alicia Garza Alicia Garza (born January 4, 1981) is an American civil rights activist and writer known for co-founding the international Black Lives Matter movement. She has organized around the issues of health, student services and rights, rights for dome ...

and historian

Barbara Ransby Barbara Ransby (born May 12, 1957) is a writer, historian, professor, and activist. She is an elected fellow of the Society of American Historians, and holds the John D. MacArthur Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ransby attended C ...

. The interviews showcase the Collective's continued impact on

Black feminist 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 ...

issues, including the renewed focus on

identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...

Reception

Writing in ''Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society,'' Sarah J. Jackson notes that each of the women interviewed in the book prompts one to remember that black, feminist politics are an "extension and application of socialist ideals, both economic and in relation to community and collectivity, that helped black women in the sixties and seventies imagine that a world in which feminist, antiracist, and queer values are simply lived is possible." Kristal Moore Clemons writes in the ''Journal of African American History'', "Taylor's work contributes to the expanding literature on black feminism as an analytical framework to activists' response to oppression and state-sanctioned violence."

Awards

The book won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ non-fiction.

References

External links

''How We Get Free''
at Haymarket Books 2017 non-fiction books Black feminism Black feminist books 2017 LGBT-related literary works Lambda Literary Award-winning works {{Nonfiction-book-stub