Section 2, Race and Nation, Combahee River

"A Black Feminist Statement", The Combahee River Collective

1. The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism; though black women have always embodied adversary to white male rule, the black feminist presence evolved in connection with the women's movement of the late 1960's but obscured by rascism, and tied to movements for black liberation
2. What We Believe; black women are inherently valuable, her need for liberation is the need of human persons for autonomy, sexism is linked to politics of race and class under a patriarchal system, we do not advocate fractionalization and reject lesbian separatism because of the necessity of solidarity around race, we are socialists because we realize the liberation of the oppressed will mean the destruction of the existing political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism, the personal is political
   
3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists; oppression is being fought on a whole variety of fronts without access to resources, making it difficult to convince women to upset the gender arrangement that provides some source of economic stability
4. Black Feminist Issues and Practice; an issue of concern is rascism in the white women's movement