INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM
MANDATORY READING
BOOKS
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall — A potent and electrifying critique of today’s feminist movement and its glaring blind spots; takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all women.
Women, Race & Class Angela Y. Davis (PDF available here) — A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. From the widely revered and legendary political activist and scholar Angela Davis.
This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a testimony to women of color feminism as it emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Through personal essays, criticism, interviews, testimonials, poetry, and visual art, the collection explores, as coeditor Cherríe Moraga writes, "the complex confluence of identities — race, class, gender, and sexuality — systemic to women of color oppression and liberation."
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor — The Combahee River Collective, a group of radical Black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the 60s/70s antiracist and women's liberation movements. In this collection of essays, edited by activist-scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to Black feminism and its impact on today's struggles.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou — The first in a seven-volume series, Maya Angelou’s autobiography is a coming-of-age story and beloved American classic that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma.
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper — Far too often, Black women's anger has been caricatured into an ugly and destructive force that threatens the civility and social fabric of American democracy. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.
ARTICLES
The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism by Audre Lorde
How the Suffrage Movement Betrayed Black Women Brent Staples for the New York Times
When Feminism is White Supremacy in Heels — by Rachel Cargle: From tone policing to whitesplaining, the liberal white women's feminism is more toxic than they realize.
Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected from the African American Policy Forum & Columbia Law School’s Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies
Women’s Equality Day celebrates the 19th Amendment. For nonwhite women, the fight to vote continued for decades. Sherri Williams for The Lily
Climate Change Tied to Pregnancy Risks, Affecting Black Mothers Most by Christopher Flavelle — breaks down the data from studies covering more than 32 million births from 2007-2019 demonstrating that high temperatures and air pollution lead to higher rates of premature, underweight or stillborn babies — and how Black mothers + babies are harmed at much higher rates than the population at large.
NATAL — a podcast docuseries about having a baby while Black in the United States. Black parents share their accounts of pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum care. The docuseries also highlights the birthworkers, medical professionals, researchers, and advocates fighting daily for better care for Black birthing parents.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
BOOKS
PDF: At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle McGuire
PDF: Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced and Underprotected from the African American Policy Forum & Columbia Law School’s Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby (PDF available in part here)
Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins (PDF available here)
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South by Talitha L. LeFlouria
Ain’t I A Woman? and All About Love by bell hooks
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A Washington
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses by Oyeronke Oyewumi
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E Jones-Rogers
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique edited by Whitney Peoples, Lynn Roberts, Loretta Ross, and Erika Derkas
Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth by Dana-Ain Davis
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Dr. Brittney Cooper
No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity by Sarah Haley
The Black Woman: An Anthology edited by Toni Cade Bambara
Freedom's Daughters by Lynn Olson
Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers
White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M. Broom
Scandalize My Name: Black Feminist Practice and the Making of Black Social Life by Terrion L Williamson
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea Ritchie
Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation Of The Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip Hop Feminist Breaks It Down by Joan Morgan
