Recasting Second Wave Feminism

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Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the
Chronology of Second Wave Feminism
Becky Thompson
In the last severalyears, a numberof histories have been publishedthat

chroniclethe emergenceand contributionsof Second Wave feminism.'
Althoughinitially eager to read and teach from these histories, I have
found myself increasingly concerned about the extent to which they
providea version of Second Wave historythat ChelaSandovalrefersto
as "hegemonicfeminism."'This feminism is white led, marginalizesthe
activism and world views of women of color, focuses mainly on the
United States, and treats sexism as the ultimateoppression.Hegemonic
feminism deemphasizesor ignores a class and race analysis, generally
sees equalitywith men as the goal of feminism, and has an individual
rights-based,ratherthanjustice-basedvision for social change.
Althoughrarelynamed as hegemonicfeminism,this historytypically
resortsto an old litany of the women'smovementthat includesthree or
fourbranchesof feminism:liberal,socialist,radical,and sometimescul-
tural feminism.3The most significantproblemwith this litany is that it
does not recognizethe centralityof the feminism of women of color in
SecondWavehistory.Missingtoo, from normativeaccountsis the story
of white antiracistfeminism which, from its emergence,has been inter-
twined with, and fueled by the developmentof, feminism among wom-
en of color.'
Tellingthe history of Second Wave feminism from the point of view
of women of color and white antiracistwomen illuminates the rise of
multiracialfeminism-the liberationmovementspearheadedby women
of color in the United States in the 1970s that was characterizedby its
internationalperspective,its attentionto interlockingoppressions,and
its support of coalition politics.' Bernice Johnson Reagon'snaming of
"coalitionpolitics";Patricia Hill Collins'sunderstandingof women of
color as "outsiderswithin";BarbaraSmith'sconcept of "thesimultane-
ity of oppressions";CherrieMoragaand GloriaAnzaldi'a's"theoryin
Feminist Studies 28, no. 2 (summer 2002). @ 2002 by Feminist Studies, Inc.
337
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338 BeckyThompson
the flesh"; ChandraTalpade Mohanty'scritique of "imperialistfemi-

nism"; Paula Gunn Allen's "red roots of white feminism"; Adrienne
Rich's "politicsof location";and PatriciaWilliams'sanalysis of "spirit
murder"are all theoreticalguidepostsfor multiracialfeminism.6Tracing
the rise of multiracialfeminism raises many questions about common
assumptionsmade in normativeversions of SecondWavehistory.Con-
structinga multiracialfeminist movementtime line and juxtaposingit
with the normativetime line reveals competingvisions of what consti-
tutes liberationand illuminatesschisms in feminist consciousnessthat
are still with us today.
The Rise of Multiracial Feminism

Normativeaccountsof the SecondWavefeministmovementoften reach
back to the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in
1963,the foundingof the NationalOrganizationfor Womenin 1966, and
the emergenceof women'sconsciousness-raising(CR)groupsin the late
1960s. All signaled a rising number of white, middle-classwomen un-
willingto be treatedlike second-classcitizensin the boardroom,in edu-
cation, or in bed. Manyof the earlyprotestswaged by this sector of the
feminist movement picked up on the courage and forthrightness of
196os' struggles-a willingnessto stop traffic,breakexistinglaws to pro-
vide safe and accessibleabortions,and contradictthe older generation.
Foryoungerwomen, the leadershipwomen had demonstratedin 196os'
activism belied the sex roles that had traditionallydefined domestic,
economic,and politicalrelationsand openednew possibilitiesfor action.
This version of the originsof SecondWavehistoryis not sufficientin
telling the story of multiracial feminism. Although there were Black
women involvedwith NOWfrom the outset and Blackand Latinawom-
en who participatedin CRgroups,the feminist work of women of color
also extended beyond women-only spaces. In fact, during the 1970s,
women of color were involved on three fronts-working with white-
dominated feminist groups; forming women's caucuses in existing
mixed-genderorganizations;and developingautonomousBlack,Latina,
NativeAmerican,and Asianfeministorganizations.7
This three-prongedapproachcontrastssharplywith the common no-
tion that women of colorfeministsemergedin reactionto (and therefore
later than) white feminism.In her critiqueof "modelmaking"in Second
Wavehistoriography,whichhas "allbut ignoredthe feminist activismof
women of color,"Benita Roth "challengesthe idea that Blackfeminist
organizingwas a latervariantof so-calledmainstreamwhite feminism."8
Roth'sassertion-thatthe timing of Blackfeminist organizingis roughly
equivalent to the timing of white feminist activism-is true about feminist
activism by Latinas, Native Americans, and Asian Americans as well.
One of the earliest feminist organizations of the Second Wave was a
Chicana group-Hijas de Cuauhtemoc (1971)-named after a Mexican
BeckyThompson 339
women's undergroundnewspaperthat was published during the 191o

Mexican Revolution. Chicanaswho formed this femenista group and
publisheda newspapernamed afterthe early-twentieth-century Mexican
women'srevolutionarygroup, were initiallyinvolvedin the United Mexi-
can AmericanStudentOrganizationwhichwas partof the Chicano/astu-
dent movement.9Many of the founders of Hijas de Cuauhtemocwere
later involved in launching the first national Chicanastudies journal,
EncuentroFeminil.
An early Asian Americanwomen's group, Asian Sisters, focused on
drug abuse interventionfor young women in LosAngeles.It emergedin
1971out of the Asian AmericanPoliticalAlliance,a broad-based,grass-
roots organizationlargely fueled by the consciousness of first-genera-
tion AsianAmericancollege students.NetworkingbetweenAsianAmer-
ican and other women duringthis period also includedparticipationby
a contingentof 150 ThirdWorldand white women from NorthAmerica
at the historic VancouverIndochinese Women's Conference(1971) to
workwith Indochinesewomen against U.S. imperialism.'0AsianAmeri-
can women providedservicesfor batteredwomen, workedas advocates
for refugeesand recent immigrants,producedevents spotlightingAsian
women'sculturaland politicaldiversity,and organizedwith otherwom-
en of color."
The best-knownNativeAmericanwomen's organizationof the 1970s
was Women of All Red Nations (WARN).WARNwas initiated in 1974
by women, many of whom were also members of the AmericanIndian
Movementwhich was founded in 1968 by Dennis Banks, GeorgeMit-
chell, and MaryJane Wilson, an Anishinabeactivist."'WARN'sactivism
included fighting sterilizationin public health service hospitals, suing
the U.S. government for attempts to sell Pine Ridge water in South
Dakota to corporations, and networking with indigenous people in
Guatemala and Nicaragua.'3WARN reflected a whole generation of
Native Americanwomen activistswho had been leaders in the takeover
of Wounded Knee in South Dakotain 1973, on the Pine Ridge reserva-
tion (1973-76), and elsewhere. WARN,like Asian Sisters and Hijas de
Cuauhtemoc,grew out of-and often worked with-mixed-gender na-
tionalistorganizations.
The autonomous feminist organizations that Black, Latina,Asian,
and NativeAmericanwomen were formingduringthe early 1970s drew
on nationalisttraditionsthroughtheir recognitionof the need for peo-
ple of color-led, independent organizations.'4 At the same time, unlike
earlier nationalist organizationsthat included women and men, these
were organizationsspecificallyfor women.
Among Blackwomen, one early Blackfeminist organizationwas the
ThirdWorldWomen'sAlliance which emerged in 1968 out of the Stu-
dent Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee(SNCC)chapterson the East
Coast and focused on racism, sexism, and imperialism.'"The foremost
340 BeckyThompson
autonomousfeminist organizationof the early 1970s was the National

Black Feminist Organization(NBFO). Founded in 1973 by Florynce
Kennedy, MargaretSloan, and Doris Wright, it included many other
well-known Blackwomen including Faith Ringgold,MichelleWallace,
Alice Walker,and BarbaraSmith. Accordingto Deborah GrayWhite,
NBFO, "more than any organization in the century ... launched a
frontalassaulton sexism and racism."'6 Its first conferencein New York
was attendedby 400 women from a rangeof class backgrounds.
Althoughthe NFBOwas a short-livedorganizationnationally(1973-
75), chaptersin majorcities remainedtogetherfor years, includingone
in Chicagothat survived until 1981. The contents of the CR sessions
were decidelyBlackwomen'sissues-stereotypes of Blackwomen in the
media, discriminationin the workplace,myths about Blackwomen as
matriarchs,Black women's beauty, and self-esteem." The NBFO also
helped to inspire the founding of the Combahee River Collective in
1974,a Boston-basedorganizationnamed aftera riverin SouthCarolina
where HarrietTubman led an insurgent action that freed 750 slaves.
The CombaheeRiver Collectivenot only led the way for crucial anti-
racist activism in Boston through the decade, but it also provided a
blueprint for Black feminism that still stands a quarter of a century
later.'"From Combaheemember BarbaraSmith came a definition of
feminism so expansivethat it remainsa model today. Smithwrites that
"feminismis the politicaltheoryand practiceto free all women:women
of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged
women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economicallyprivileged
heterosexualwomen. Anythingless than this is not feminism,but mere-
ly female self-aggrandizement."''9
These and other groups in the early and mid-1970osprovided the
foundationfor the most far-reachingand expansiveorganizingby wom-
en of color in U.S. history. These organizationsalso fueled a veritable
explosion of writingby women of color, includingToni Cade'spioneer-
ing, TheBlack Woman:An Anthologyin 1970, MaxineHong Kingston's
The Woman Warrior in 1977, and in 1981 and 1983, respectively, the
foundationalThisBridge CalledMy Back: Writingsby Radical Women
of Colorand Home Girls:A Black FeministAnthology.2oWhile chroni-
cling the dynamism and complexity of a multidimensionalvision for
women of color, these books also traced for white women what is
requiredto be allies to women of color.
By the late 1970s, the progress made possible by autonomous and
independentAsian, Latina,and Blackfeminist organizationsopened a
space for women of color to workin coalitionacross organizationswith
each other. During this period, two cohorts of white women became in-
volved in multiracial feminism. One group had, in the late 196os and
early 1970s, chosen to work in anti-imperialist, antiracist militant orga-
nizations in connection with Black Power groups-the Black Panther
BeckyThompson 341
Party,the Black LiberationArmy-and other solidarityand nationalist

organizations associated with the American Indian, Puerto Rican In-
dependence,and ChicanoMovementsof the late 196os and early 1970s.
These women chose to work with these solidarityorganizationsrather
than workin overwhelminglywhite feminist contexts.None of the white
antiracistfeminists I interviewed(for a social history of antiracismin
the United States) who were politicallyactive duringthe civil rights and
BlackPowermovementshad an interestin organizationsthat had a sin-
gle focus on genderor that did not have antiracismat the center of their
agendas.
Militantwomen of color and white women took stands againstwhite
supremacy and imperialism (both internal and external colonialism);
envisioned revolutionas a necessaryoutcome of political struggle;and
saw armed propaganda(armed attacks against corporateand military
targets along with public educationabout state crime) as a possible tac-
tic in revolutionarystruggle.Althoughsome of these women avoidedor
rejectedthe term "feminist"because of its associationwith hegemonic
feminism, these women still confronted sexism both within solidarity
and nationalistorganizationsand within their own communities.In her
autobiographicalaccount of her late-196os' politics, Black liberation
movement leader Assata Shakur writes: "To me, the revolutionary
struggleof Blackpeople had to be againstracism,classism, imperialism
and sexism for realfreedomundera socialistgovernment.""Duringthis
period, Angela Davis was also linking anti-capitaliststruggle with the
fight against race and gender oppression." Similarly, white militant
activist Marilyn Buck, who was among the first women to confront
Students for a DemocraticSociety (SDS) aroundissues of sexism, also
spoke up for women'srightsas an ally of the BlackLiberationArmy.
Rarely,however,have their stories-and those of other militant anti-
racist women-been consideredpart of SecondWavehistory. In her cri-
tique of this dominantnarrative,historianNancy MacLeanwrites:"Re-
cent accountsof the rise of modernfeminism departlittle from the story
line first advancedtwo decades ago and since enshrined as orthodoxy.
That story stars white middle-class women triangulatedbetween the
pulls of liberal, radical/cultural,and socialist feminism. Working-class
women and women of color assume walk-onparts late in the plot, after
tendencies and allegiancesare alreadyin place. The problemwith this
script is not simply that it has grown stale from repeatedretelling.It is
not accurate...."23
The omission of militant white women and women of color from
Second Wavehistorypartlyreflectsa common notion that the women's
movement followed and drew upon the early civil rights movement and
the New Left, a trajectory that skips entirely the profound impact that
the Black Power movement had on many women's activism. Omitting
militant women activists from historical reference also reflects a num-
342 BeckyThompson
ber of ideological assumptions made during the late 1960s and early
1970s-that "real"feministswere those who workedprimarilyor exclu-
sively with other women; that "women'sways of knowing"were more
collaborative,less hierarchical,and more peace loving than men's; and
that women's liberationwould come from women's deepening under-
standingthat "sisterhoodis powerful."
These politics were upheld both by liberal and radicalwhite femi-
nists. These politics did not, however,sit well with many militantwom-
en of color and white women who refusedto considersexism the prima-
ry, or most destructive,oppressionand recognizedthe limits of gaining
equalityin a system that, as MalcolmX had explained,was alreadyon
fire. The women of color and white militant women who supported a
race, class, and gender analysisin the late 196os and 1970s often found
themselves trying to explain their politics in mixed-gendersettings (at
home, at work, and in their activism), sometimes alienated from the
men (and some women) who did not get it, while simultaneouslyalien-
ated fromwhite feministswhose politicsthey considerednarrowat best
and frivolousat worst.
By the late 1970s, the militant women who wanted little to do with
white feminism of the late 196os and 1970s became deeply involvedin
multiracialfeminism. By that point, the decade of organizing among
women of colorin autonomousBlack,Latina,and Asianfeministorgani-
zations led militant antiracistwhite women to immerse themselves in
multiracialfeminism. Meanwhile, a younger cohort of white women,
who were first politicizedin the late 1970s, saw feminismfrom a whole
differentvantagepoint than did the older,white, antiracistwomen. For
the younger group, exposureto multiracialfeminism led by women of
colormeant an earlylesson that race,class, and genderwere inextricably
linked. They also gainedvital experiencein multipleorganizations-bat-
tered women's shelters, conferences, and health organizations-where
womenwere,with much struggle,attemptingto upholdthis politic."
From this organizingcame the emergenceof a small but important
group of white women determinedto understandhow white privilege
had historicallyblocked cross-racealliances among women, and what
they, as white women, neededto do to workcloselywith women of color.
Not surprisingly,Jewish women and lesbians often led the way among
white women in articulatinga politic that accountedfor white women's
position as both oppressedand oppressor-as both women and white."
Both groups knew what it meant to be marginalizedfrom a women's
movement that was, nevertheless, still homophobic and Christian
biased. Both groups knew that "thereis no place like home"-among
other Jews and/or lesbians-and the limits of that home if for Jews it
was male dominated or if for lesbians it was exclusively white. The para-
doxes of "home"for these groups paralleled many of the situations expe-
rienced by women of color who, over and over again, found themselves
BeckyThompson 343
to be the bridgesthat everyoneassumedwouldbe on theirbacks.

As the straight Blackwomen interactedwith the Blacklesbians, the
first-generation Chinese women talked with the Native American ac-
tivists, and the Latinawomen talked with the Blackand white women
about the walls that go up when people cannot speak Spanish, white
women attemptingto understandrace knew they had a lot of listening
to do. They also had a lot of truth telling to reckon with, and a lot of
networkingto do, among other white women and with women of color
as well.
Radicals, Heydays, and Hot Spots

The story of Second Wave feminism, if told from the vantage point of
multiracial feminism, also encourages us to rethink key assumptions
about periodization.Among these assumptions is the notion that the
1960s and early 1970s were the height of the radical feminist move-
ment. For example,in her forewordto Alice Echols'sDaring to Be Bad:
Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975,Ellen Willis asserts that by
the mid-197os,the best of feminism had alreadyoccurred.26 In her his-
tory of the women's liberationmovement, Barbara Ryan writes that the
unity amongwomen evident in the early 1970s declineddramaticallyby
the late 1970s as a consequenceof divisionswithinthe movement.27
Lookingat the historyof feminismfromthe point of view of women of
color and antiracistwhite women suggestsquite a differentpicture.The
fact that white women connectedwith the BlackPowermovementcould
rarelyfind workablespace in the earlyfeministmovementcrystalizedfor
many of them with the 1971rebellionat AtticaPrisonin New YorkState
in responseto human rightsabuses."8 For antiracistactivistNaomi Jaffe,
who was a member of SDS, the Weather Underground, and WITCH
(Women'sInternationalTerroristConspiracyfrom Hell), attemptsto be
part of both earlySecondWavefeminismand an antiraciststrugglewere
untenable.The Atticarebellion,which resultedin the massacreby state
officialsof thirty-oneprisonersand nine guards,pushed Jaffe to decide
between the two. She vividly rememberswhite feminists arguingthat
there was no room for remorsefor the "malechauvinists"who had died
at Attica. Jaffe disagreed vehemently, arguing that if white feminists
could not understandAtticaas a feministissue, then she was not a femi-
nist. At the time, Blackactivist and lawyerFlorynceKennedyhad said:
"Wedo not supportAttica.We AREAttica.We areAtticaor we are noth-
ing." Jaffe claimed: "Thatabout summed up my feelings on the sub-
ject. Withthis consciousness,and her increasingawarenessof the vio-
29
lence of the state againstthe BlackPanthers,antiwarprotesters,and lib-

eration struggles around the world, Jaffe continued to work with the
Weather Underground. She went underground from 1970 to 1978.
Naomi Jaffe, like other white women working with the Black Power
movement, were turned off by a feminism that they considered both
344 BeckyThompson
bourgeoisand reductionist.They stepped out of what antiracisthistori-

an Sherna BergerGluckhas termed "the master historical narrative,"
and they have been writtenout of it by historianswho have relied upon
a telling of Second Wave feminism that focused solely on gender op-
pression. Although the late 196os and early 1970s might have been the
"heyday"for white "radical"feminists in CR groups, from the perspec-
tive of white antiracists,the early 1970s were a low point of feminism-a
time when many women who were committedto an antiracistanalysis
had to put their feminism on the back burner in order to work with
women and men of colorand againstracism.
Coincidingwith the frequentassumptionthat 1969 to 1974 was the
height of "radicalfeminism,"many feministhistoriansconsider 1972to
1982 as the period of mass mobilization and 1983 to 1991 as a period of
feminist abeyance.30Ironically,the years that sociologistsVerta Taylor
and Nancy Whittierconsiderthe period of mass mobilizationfor femi-
nists (1972-82) arethe yearsthat ChelaSandovalidentifiesas the period
when "ideologicaldifferencesdividedand helped to dissipatethe move-
ment fromwithin."31For antiracistwomen (bothwhite and of color),the
best days of feminism were yet to come when, as BarbaraSmith ex-
plains, "Thoseissues that had divided many of the movement's con-
stituencies-such as racism, anti-Semitism,ableism, ageism, and class-
ism-were put out on the table."32
Ironically, the very period that white feminist historians typically
treat as a period of decline within the movement is the period of mass
mobilizationamong antiracistwomen-both straight and lesbian. The
very year that Taylorand Whittierconsider the end of mass mobiliza-
tion because the ERAfailed to be ratified,1982, is the year that Gluck
rightfullycites as the beginningof a feminism far more expansivethan
had previously existed. She writes: "By1982, on the heels of difficult
political struggle waged by activist scholars of color, ground breaking
essays and anthologies by and about women of color opened a new
chapterin U.S. feminism. The future of the women's movement in the
U.S. was reshaped irrevocably by the introduction of the expansive
notion of feminisms."33 AngelaDavis concurs,citing 1981,with the pub-
lication of This Bridge Called My Back, as the year when women of
colorhad developedas a "newpoliticalsubject,"due to substantialwork
done in multiplearenas.3
In fact, periodizationof the women's movement from the point of
view of multiracialfeminismwould treat the late 196os and early 1970s
as its origin and the mid-197os, 1980s, and 199os as a height. A time
line of that period shows a flourishingmultiracialfeminist movement.
In 1977,the CombaheeRiver CollectiveStatementwas first published;
in 1979, Conditions: Five, the Black women's issue, was published, the
First National Third World Lesbian Conference was held, and Assata
Shakur escaped from prison in New Jersey with the help of prison
BeckyThompson 345
activists.35In 1981, ByllyeAveryfounded the National BlackWomen's

Health Projectin Atlanta;BerniceJohnson Reagongave her now-classic
speech on coalition politics at the West CoastWomen'sMusic Festival
in Yosemite; and the National Women's Studies Association held its
first conferenceto deal with racism as a centraltheme, in Storrs,Con-
necticut, where there were multiple animated interventions against
racism and anti-Semitismin the women's movement and from which
emergedAdrienne Rich'sexquisite essay, "Disobedienceand Women's
Studies.""36Then, 1984 was the year of the New York Women against
Rape Conference,a multiracial,multiethnicconferencethat confronted
multiple challenges facing women organizingagainst violence against
women-by partners, police, social service agencies, and poverty. In
1985, the United Nations Decade for Women conference in Nairobi,
Kenya,took place;that same year,WilmaMankillerwas namedthe first
principalchief of the CherokeeNation. In 1986, the NationalWomen's
Studies Associationconferencewas held at Spelman College.The next
year, 1987, the SupremeCourtruledthat the Immigrationand Naturali-
zation Service must interpretthe 198os' RefugeeAct more broadlyto
recognize refugees from CentralAmerica, a ruling that reflected the
work on the part of thousands of activists, many of whom were femi-
nists, to end U.S. interventionin CentralAmerica.
In 1991, Elsa Barkely Brown, BarbaraRansby, and Deborah King
launched the campaigncalled AfricanAmericanWomen in Defense of
Ourselves,within minutes of Anita Hill'stestimonyregardingthe nomi-
nation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Their organizing
included an advertisementin the New YorkTimes and six Blacknews-
papers which included the names of 1,603 Black women. The 1982
defeat of the ERA did not signal a period of abeyance for multiracial
feminism. In fact, multiracialfeminism flourishedin the 198os, despite
the country'sturn to the Right.
UnderstandingSecondWavefeminism from the vantagepoint of the
BlackPowermovementand multiracialfeminismalso shows the limit of
the frequent assignment of the term "radical"only to the white anti-
patriarchalfeministsof late 1960s and early1970s. Manyfeministhisto-
rianslink the developmentof radicalfeminismto the creationof several
antipatriarchyorganizations-theRedstockings,Radicalesbians,WITCH,
and other CRgroups.How the term "radical" is used by feministhistori-
ans does not square,however,with how women of color and white anti-
racists used that term from the 196o0sthroughthe 198os. What does it
mean when feministhistoriansapplythe term "radical" to white, antipa-
triarchywomen but not to antiracistwhite women and women of color
(including Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, Marilyn Buck, Anna Mae
Aquash, Susan Saxe, Vicki Gabriner, and Laura Whitehorn) of the same
era whose "radicalism"included attention to race, gender, and imperial-
ism and a belief that revolution might require literally laying their lives
346 BeckyThompson
on the line? These radical women include political prisoners-Black,

PuertoRican,and white-some of whom are still in prisonfor their anti-
racist activism in the 196os and 1970s. Many of these women openly
identifyas feminists and/or lesbiansbut are rarelyincludedin histories
of SecondWavefeminism.
What does it mean when the term "radical"is only assignedto white,
antipatriarchywomen when the subtitle to CherrieMoragaand Gloria
Anzaldfia's foundational book, This Bridge Called My Back, was
"Writingsby Radical Women of Color"?37 To my mind, a nuanced and
accuratetelling of Second Wave feminism is one that shows why and
how the term "radical" was itself contested.Recognizingthat there were
different groups who used the term "radical"does not mean that we
then need an overarchingdefinitionof "radicalfeminism"that includes
all these approaches.It does mean understandingthat white feminists
of the "daringto be bad period"(from 1967 to 1975) do not have exclu-
sive rights to the term."38
An expansive history would emphasize that
Second Wave feminism drew on the civil rights movement, the New
Left, and the Black Power movement which, together, helped to pro-
duce three groupsof "radical" women.
Principles of a Movement
Althoughanalysis of the feminist movementthat accountsfor compet-
ing views of what it means to be "radical"
is a step forwardin developing
a complex understandingof Second Wave history, what most interests
me about comparingnormativefeminist history with multiracialfemi-
nism are the contestationsin philosophyembeddedin these coexisting
frameworks. Both popular and scholarly interpretations of Second
Wave feminism typicallylink two well-knownprinciplesto the move-
ment-"SisterhoodIs Powerful"and the "PersonalIs Political."Fromthe
point of view of multiracialfeminism, both principlesare a good start
but, in themselves,are not enough.
Conversationsand strugglesbetweenwomen of colorand white wom-
en encouragedwhitewomento thinkaboutthe limits of the popularfem-
inist slogan "SisterhoodIs Powerful."Therewere many reasonswhy the
editors of This Bridge CalledMy Back titled one of the sections of the
book, "AndWhenYouLeave,TakeYourPictureswithYou:Racismin the
Women's Movement."LorraineBethel'spoem, "WhatChou Mean We
White Girl? or the Cullud Lesbian Feminist Declaration of Indepen-
dence"("Dedicatedto the propositionthat all women are not equal,i.e.,
identical/lyoppressed"),clarifiesthat a "we"betweenwhite and Blackis
provisional, at best.39 Anthropologist Wendy Rose's critique of "white
shamanism"-white people's attempt to become native in order to grow
spiritually-applies as well to white feminists who treat Native American
women as innately spiritual, as automatically their spiritual mothers.40
Cross-racial struggle made clear the work that white women needed
BeckyThompson 347
to do in order for cross-racialsisterhoodto really be powerful.Among

the directives were the following: Don't expect women of color to be
your educators,to do all the bridgework. White women need to be the
bridge-a lot of the time. Do not lump AfricanAmerican,Latina,Asian
American,and NativeAmericanwomen into one category.History,cul-
ture, imperialism,language,class, region, and sexualitymake the con-
cept of a monolithic"womenof color"indefensible.Listento women of
color'sanger. It is informedby centuriesof struggle,erasure,and expe-
rience. White women, look to your own history for signs of heresy and
rebellion. Do not take on the histories of Black, Latina, or American
Indianwomen as your own. They are not and neverwere yours.
A second principle associated with liberal and radical feminism is
captured in the slogan "ThePersonal Is Political,"first used by civil
rights and New Left activistsand then articulatedwith more depth and
consistency by feminist activists. The idea behind the slogan is that
many issues that historicallyhave been deemed "personal"-abortion,
battery, unemployment, birth, death, and illness-are actually deeply
politicalissues.
Multiracialfeminism requireswomen to add anotherlevel of aware-
ness-to stretch the adage from "ThePersonal Is Political"to, in the
words of antiracistactivistAnne Braden,"ThePersonalIs Politicaland
The PoliticalIs Personal."41Manyissues that have been relegatedto the
private sphere are, in fact, deeply political. At the same time, many
political issues need to be personallycommittedto-whether you have
been victimizedby those issues are not. In other words, you don't have
to be part of a subordinatedgroupto know an injusticeis wrong and to
stand against it. White women need not be victims of racism to recog-
nize it is wrong and stand up againstit. Unless that is done, white wom-
en will never understand how they support racism. If the only issues
that feminists deem politicalare those they have experiencedpersonal-
ly, their frame of referenceis destined to be narrowlydefined by their
own lived experience.
The increasing number of antiracistwhite women who moved into
mixed-gender,multi-issue organizationsin the 198os and 1990osafter
having helped to build women's culturalinstitutions in the 1970s and
1980s may be one of the best examples of an attempt to uphold this
politic. Mab Segrest, perhaps the most prolific writer among lesbian
antiracistorganizers,providesthe quintessentialexampleof this transi-
tion in her move from working on the lesbian feminist journal, Fem-
inary, in the late 1970s and early 198os, to becoming the director of
North CaroliniansagainstRacistand ReligiousViolencein the 198os. A
self-reflective writer, Segrest herself notes this transition in the preface to
her first book, My Mama's Dead Squirrel: Lesbian Essays on Southern
Culture. Segrest writes: "In the first [essay] I wrote, 'I believe that the
oppression of women is the first oppression.' Now I am not so sure. Later
348 BeckyThompson
I wrote,'Relationshipsbetweenwomenmatterto me morethan anything

else in my life.'Now what mattersmost is more abstractand totallyspe-
cific:the closestwordto it, justice. ... Duringthe earlyyearsthe writing
comes primarilyout of work with other lesbians; later on, from work
where I am the only lesbian."42The book opens with autobiographical
essays abouther familyand women'swriting,but the last essays chroni-
cle the beginningof her organizingagainstthe Klan-essaysthat became
the backdropto her secondbook,Memoirof a Race Traitor.In Segrest's
view, by 1983, her work in building lesbian culture-through editing
Feminary and her own writing-"no longer seemed enough, it seemed
too literary."Segrestfoundherselfboth "inspiredby and frustratedwith
the lesbianfeministmovement."Segrestrecallsthat she
had sat in manyroomsandparticipated in manyconversations betweenles-
bians aboutpainfuldifferencesin race and class, aboutanti-Semitismand
ageismandablebodiedism. Theyhadbeenharddiscussions, buttheyhadgiven
me someglimpseof the possibilityof spinninga widerlesbianmovement,a
women'smovementthattrulyincorporates diversityas its strength.Butin all
those discussions,difficultas theywere,we had neverbeen out to kill each
other.In the facesof KlanandNazimen-andwomen-inNorthCarolina I saw
people who would killus all. I I
felt neededto shiftfromperfectingconscious-
nessto puttingconsciousness to the continualtest of action.I wantedto answer
a questionthathadresonatedthroughthe lesbianwritingI hadtakenmostto
heart:"What willyouundertake?"43
This, I believe,remainsa doggedand crucialquestionbeforeus and one
that requiresus to move beyondlitanies ultimatelybased on only a nar-
rowgroup'ssurvival.
The tremendous strength of autonomous feminist institutions-the
festivals, conferences,bookstores,women's studies departments,wom-
en's health centers-were the artistic,political,and social contributions
activists helped to generate. All of these culturalinstitutions required
women to ask of themselvesand others a pivotalquestionAudreLorde
had posited:Are you doing your work?And yet, by the mid-198os, the
resurgenceof the radicalRightin the United Statesthat fueled a monu-
mental backlashagainstgays and lesbians, people of color, and women
across the races led multiracialfeminists to ask again:Where and with
whom are you doing your work? Many antiracist feminists who had
helped to build the largely women-led culturalinstitutions that left a
papertrail of multiracialfeminismmoved on, into mixed-gender,multi-
racialgrassrootsorganizations,workingagainstthe Klan,in supportof
affirmativeactionand immigrantrights,and againstpolicebrutalityand
the prisonindustry.It is in these institutionsthat much of the hardwork
continues-in recognizing that "sisterhood is powerful" only when it is
worked for and not assumed and that the "personal is political" only to
the extent that one's politics go way beyond the confines of one's own
individual experience.
BeckyThompson 349
Blueprints for Feminist Activism

There are multiple strategiesfor social justice embeddedin multiracial
feminism: a belief in building coalitions that are based on a respect for
identity-basedgroups; attention to both process and productbut little
tolerancefor "all-talk"groups;racialparityat everylevel of an organiza-
tion (not added on later but initiatedfrom the start);a recognitionthat
race can not be seen in binaryterms; a recognitionthat racismexists in
your backyardas well as in the countriesthe United States is bombing
or inhabitingeconomically;and a recognitionof the limits to pacifism
when people in struggle are up against the most powerfulstate in the
world. Multiracialfeminism is not just anotherbrand of feminism that
can be taught alongside liberal, radical,and socialist feminism. Multi-
racialfeminism is the heart of an inclusivewomen'sliberationstruggle.
The race-class-gender-sexuality-nationality frameworkthrough which
multiracialfeminism operatesencompassesand goes way beyondliber-
al, radical,and socialist feminist priorities-and it alwayshas. Teaching
SecondWavefeministhistoryrequireschroniclinghow hegemonicfem-
inism came to be written about as "the"feminism and the limits of that
model. Teaching Second Wave history by chroniclingthe rise of mul-
tiracial feminism challenges limited categories because it puts social
justice and antiracism at the center of attention. This does not mean
that the work done within hegemonicfeminism did not exist or was not
useful. It does mean that it was limited in its goals and effectiveness.
Althoughthe strategies for multiracialfeminism were firmly estab-
lished in the 1970s and 198os, I contend that these principlesremain a
blueprint for progressive,feminist, antiraciststruggle in this millenni-
um. These are principleswe will need in orderto build on the momen-
tum begun in Seattle (as activist energy shocked the World Trade Or-
ganization out of its complacency) while we refuse to reproduce the
overwhelminglywhite composition of most of the groups involved in
that protest.We will need the principlesintroducedby multiracialfemi-
nism to sustain a critiqueof the punishmentindustrythat accountsfor
the increasingnumberof women caughtin the penal system. These are
principleswe will need to nurturewhat criticalrace theorist MariMat-
suda has named a "jurisprudence of antisubordination." Matsuda
writes: "Ajurisprudence of antisubordinationis an attempt to bring
home the lost ones, to make them part of the center, to end the soul-
killing tyranny of inside/outside thinking. Accountabilityrevisited. I
want to bringhome the women who hate their own bodies so much that
they would let a surgeon'shand cut fat from it, or a man's batter and
bruise it. I want to bring home the hungry ones eating from the trash-
bins; the angry ones who call me names; the little ones in foster care.""
The principles of antisubordination embedded in multiracial feminism,
in antiracism feminism, are a crucial piece of this agenda.
Because written histories of social movements are typically one gen-
350 BeckyThompson
erationbehind the movementsthemselves,it makes sense that histories

of the feminist movement are just now emerging.That timing means
that now is the time to interruptnormativeaccountsbefore they begin
to repeatthemselves, each time, sounding more like "thetruth"simply
because of the repetitionof the retelling.This interruptionis necessary
with regardto SecondWavefeminismas well as earliermovements.
In her retrospectiveaccount of Black nationalism of the late 196os
and early 197os, Angela Davis describeshow broad-basednationalism
has droppedalmost completelyout of the frame of referencein popular
representationsof the BlackPowermovement.This nationalisminclud-
ed alliances between Black and Chicanostudies, in which students in
San Diego were demandingthe creationof a college called Lumumba-
Zapata,and Huey Newton was callingfor an end to "verbalgay bashing,
urging an examination of black male sexuality, and calling for an
alliancewith the developinggay liberationmovement."Davis writes: "I
resent that the legacy I consider my own-one I also helped to con-
struct-has been renderedinvisible.Youngpeople with 'nationalist'pro-
clivities ought, at least, to have the opportunityto choose which tradi-
tion of nationalism they will embrace. How will they position them-
selves en masse in defense of women'srights, in defense of gay rights, if
they are not awareof the historicalprecedentsfor such positionings?"45
In a parallelway, I want young women to knowthe rich,complicated,
contentious,and visionaryhistory of multiracialfeminism and to know
the nuanced controversieswithin Second Wave feminism. I want them
to know that ShirleyChisholmran for presidentin 1972;that Celestine
Warewrote a Blackradicalfeminist text in the 1970s which offered an
inspiringconceptionof revolutionwith a deep sense of humanity;that
before MabSegrestwent to workfor an organizationagainstthe Klanin
North Carolina,she and others publishedan independentlesbianjour-
nal in the 1970s that included some of the most important and com-
pelling race-consciouswritingby white women and women of color to
date.46I want people to know that there are antiracistfeminist women
currentlyin prison for their antiracistactivismin the 1960s and since.47
Among them is Marilyn Buck, a poet, political prisoner and, in her
words, "a feminist with a small 'f,'"who is serving an eighty-yearsen-
tence in California.48 Her poems, including "Tothe Woman Standing
Behind Me in Line Who Asks Me How LongThis BlackHistoryMonth
Is Going to Last,"eloquently capture why Buck must be included in
tellings of multiracialfeminism.49She writes:
the whole month
even if it is the shortestmonth
a good time in thisprison life
you stare at me
and ask why I think Februaryis so damnedfine
BeckyThompson 351
I take a breath
prisonersfight for February
African voices cross razor wire
cut throughtheflim-flam
ofAmerikkanhistory
call its crueltiesout
confirmthe genius ofsurvival
creation and
plain ole enduring
a celebration!
The woman dropsher gaze

looks awayand wishes
she had not asked
confusedthat white skin did not guarantee
a conversationshe wantedto have
she hasn'tspokento me since
I think I'lltry to stand
in line with her
again
MarilynBuck'spoems and the work of other multiracialfeminist ac-
tivists help show that the struggle against racism is hardlylinear, that
the consolidation of white-biased feminism was clearly costly to early
Second Wave feminism, and that we must dig deep to represent the
feminist movementthat does justice to an antiracistvision.
NOTES
The author would like to thank several people for their generous help on this article,
especially Monisha Das Gupta,Diane Harriford,and two Feminist Studies anonymous
reviewers.
1. For examples of histories that focus on white feminism, see Sheila Tobias,Faces of
Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women'sMovement (Boulder:Westview
Press, 1997); Barbara Ryan, Feminism and the Women'sMovement: Dynamics of
Change in Social MovementIdeology and Activism (New York:Routledge,1992); Alice
Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 (Minneapolis:
Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1989).
2. Chela Sandoval,Methodologyof the Oppressed(Minneapolis:Universityof Minne-
sota Press, 2000), 41-42.
3. Of these branches of feminism (liberal, socialist, and radical), socialist feminism,
which treats sexism and classism as interrelatedforms of oppression, may have made
the most concerted effort to develop an antiracist agenda in the 1970s. For example,
"TheCombaheeRiver CollectiveStatement"was first published in Zillah Eisenstein's
CapitalistPatriarchy and the Casefor Socialist Feminism (New York:MonthlyReview
352 Becky Thompson
Press, 1979), 362-72, before it was publishedin BarbaraSmith's,Home Girls:A Black

FeministAnthology (New York:KitchenTable,Women of ColorPress, 1983). Radical
America, a journal founded in 1967 and whose contributorsand editors include many
socialist feminists, consistently published articles that examined the relationshipbe-
tween race, class, and gender. The 1970s' socialist feminist organization,the Chicago
Women'sLiberationUnion, which consideredqualitypubliceducation,redistributionof
wealth, and accessible childcarekey to a feminist agenda, also made room for a race
analysisby not privilegingsexism over otherforms of oppression.However,the fact that
socialist feminist organizationswere typicallywhite dominated and were largely con-
fined to academicand/or middle-classcircleslimited their effectivenessand visibilityas
an antiracistpresencein earlySecondWavefeminism.For earlysocialistfeminist docu-
ments, see RosalynBaxandalland LindaGordon,eds., Dear Sisters: Dispatchesfrom
the Women'sLiberationMovement(New York:BasicBooks,2000).
4. For an expandeddiscussionof the contributionsand limitationsof white antiracism
from the 1950s to the present, see Becky Thompson,A Promise and a Way of Life:
WhiteAntiracistActivism (Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 2001).
5. For a discussion of the term "multiracialfeminism," see Maxine Baca Zinn and
Bonnie Thornton Dill, "TheorizingDifference from MultiracialFeminism,"Feminist
Studies 22 (summer 1996): 321-31.
6. BerniceJohnson Reagon, "CoalitionPolitics:Turningthe Century,"in Home Girls,
356-69; PatriciaHill Collins,Black Feminist Thought:Knowledge,Consciousness,and
the Politics of Empowerment(Boston:Unwin Hyman, 1990), 11;BarbaraSmith, intro-
duction,Home Girls,xxxii;CherrieMoragaand GloriaAnzaldlia,eds., ThisBridge Called
My Back: Writingsby Radical Womenof Color (New York:KitchenTable,Women of
ColorPress, 1981);ChandraTalpadeMohanty,"UnderWesternEyes: FeministScholar-
ship and ColonialDiscourses,"in ThirdWorldWomenand the Politicsof Feminism,ed.
ChandraTalpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington: Indiana
UniversityPress, 1991), 51-80; Paula GunnAllen, "WhoIs YourMother?Red Roots of
White Feminism,"in her The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American
Indian Traditions(Boston:Beacon Press, 1986), 209-21; AdrienneRich, Blood, Bread,
and Poetry (New York:Norton, 1986); PatriciaWilliams, TheAlchemy of Race and
Rights(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1991).
7. Here I am using the term "feminist"to describecollectiveactiondesignedto confront
interlockingrace, class, gender, and sexual oppressions(and other systematicdiscrimi-
nation). Althoughmany women in these organizationsexplicitlyreferredto themselves
as "feminist"fromtheir earliestpoliticalwork,others have used such terms as "woman-
ist," "radicalwomen of color,""revolutionary," and "socialactivist."Hesitation among
women of color about the use of the term "feminist"often signaled an unwillingnessto
be associated with white-led feminism, but this wariness did not mean they were not
doing gender-conscious,justice work. The tendency not to include gender-conscious
activism by women of color in dominant versions of Second Wave history unless the
women used the term "feminist"fails to accountfor the multipleterms women of color
have historicallyused to designateactivismthat,keeps women at the center of analysis
and attendsto interlockingoppressions.Althoughthe formationof a women'sgroup-an
Asian women'sfriendshipgroup, a Blackwomen's churchgroup or a Native American
women's arts council-is not inherentlya feminist group,those organizationsthat con-
front gender, race, sexual, and class oppression, whether named as "feminist"or not,
need to be consideredas integralto multiracialfeminism.
8. BenitaRoth, "TheMakingof the VanguardCenter:BlackFeministEmergencein the
1960s and 1970s," in Still Lifting, Still Climbing:African American Women'sCon-
temporary Activism, ed. KimberlySpringer (New York:New York University Press,
1999), 71.
9. ShernaBergerGluck,"WhoseFeminism,Whose History?Reflectionson Excavating
the Historyof (the) U.S. Women'sMovement(s),"in CommunityActivismand Feminist
Becky Thompson 353
Politics: Organizing across Race, Class, and Gender,ed. Nancy A. Naples (New York:
Routledge,1998), 38-39.
lo. MiyaIwataki,"TheAsianWomen'sMovement:A Retrospective," East Wind(spring/
summer 1983): 35-41; Gluck, 39-41.
11. Sonia Shah, "Presentingthe Blue Goddess:Towarda National Pan-AsianFeminist
Agenda,"in The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the 199os, ed.
KarinAguilar-SanJuan (Boston:SouthEnd Press, 1994), 147-58.
12. M. Annette Jaimes with Theresa Halsey, "AmericanIndian Women:At the Center
of Indigenous Resistance in ContemporaryNorth America,"in The State of Native
America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, ed. M. Annette Jaimes (Boston:
South End Press, 1992), 329.
13. Stephanie Autumn, ". .. This Air, This Land, This Water-If We Don't Start Organiz-
ing Now, We'llLose It,"Big Mama Rag 11(April1983): 4, 5.
14. For an insightfulanalysisof the multidimensionalityof Blacknationalismof the late
1960s and early 1970s, see Angela Davis, "BlackNationalism: The Sixties and the
Nineties,"in TheAngela Davis Reader,ed. Joy James (Malden,Mass.:Blackwell,1998),
289-96.
15. Ibid., 15, 314.
16. DeborahGrayWhite, Too Heavy a Load: Black Womenin Defense of Themselves
(New York: Norton, 1999), 242.
17. Ibid., 242-53.
18. CombaheeRiverCollective,"TheCombaheeRiver CollectiveStatement,"in Home
Girls, 272-82.
19. See Moragaand Anzalduia.
20. Toni Cade,ed., TheBlack Woman:An Anthology(New York:Signet,1970);Maxine
Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior (New York:Vintage Books, 1977); Moragaand
Anzalduia;Smith.
21. Assata Shakur,Assata: An Autobiography (Chicago:LawrenceHill Books, 1987),
197.
22. AngelaDavis,Angela Davis: An Autobiography(New York:RandomHouse, 1974).
23. Nancy MacLean,"TheHidden History of AffirmativeAction: WorkingWomen's
Strugglesin the 1970s and the Genderof Class,"FeministStudies 25 (spring1999):47.
24. As a womanwho was introducedto antiracistworkthroughthe feminist movement
of the late 1970s-a movementshapedin large part by women of color who calledthem-
selves "womanists,""feminists,"and "radicalwomen of color"-I came to my interest in
recastingthe chronologyof SecondWavefeminismespeciallyhopingto learn how white
antiracistwomen positioned themselves vis-a-vis Second Wave feminism. I wanted to
learn how sexism played itself out in the 1960s and how antiracist white women re-
sponded to Second Wave feminism. And I wanted to find out whether the antiracist
baton carriedin the 1960s was passed on or droppedby feminist activists.
One of the most compellinglessons I learned from white women who came of age
politicallybefore or duringthe civil rights and Black Power movementswas how diffi-
cult it was for manyof them to relateto or embracefeminismof the late 1960s and early
1970s. White antiracistwomen resisted sexism in SDS and in militantorganizations.As
they talked about the exclusions they faced in the 1960s' organizationsand criticized
early feminist organizingthat consideredgender oppression its main target, I realized
how much differentthe feminist movementthey saw in the early 1970swas fromwhat I
was introducedto in the late 1970s. By then, there was a criticalmass of seasonedfemi-
nists who were keeping race at the center of the agenda. They were teaching younger
feminists that race, class, gender, and sexualityare inextricablyconnectedand that it is
not possibleto call oneself a feministwithoutdealingwith race.
25. Several key Jewish feminist texts that addressed how to take racism and anti-
Semitismseriouslyin feminist activismwere publishedduringthis period and included
EvelynTorton Beck,ed., Nice Jewish Girls:A LesbianAnthology (Trumansburg,N.Y.:
354 Becky Thompson
CrossingPress, 1982); Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitzand Irena Klepfisz,eds., The Tribeof

Dina: A Jewish Women'sAnthology (Boston: BeaconPress, 1989), first publishedas a
special issue of Sinister Wisdom, nos. 29/30 (1986); Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz,The
Issue Is Power: Essays on Women,Jews, Violence, and Resistance (San Francisco:
Aunt Lute, 1992); Irena Klepfisz,Periods of Stress (Brooklyn,N.Y.: Out & Out Books,
1977),and Keeperof Accounts(Watertown,Mass.:PersephonePress, 1982).
For key antiracist lesbian texts, see Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets, and Silence:
SelectedProse, 1966-1978(New York:Norton, 1979);Joan Gibbsand SaraBennett,Top
Ranking:A Collectionof Articles on Racism and Classismin the Lesbian Community
(New York: Come! Unity Press, 1980); Mab Segrest, My Mama's Dead Squirrel:
LesbianEssays on SouthernCulture(Ithaca,N.Y.:FirebrandBooks,1985); Elly Bulkin,
Minnie BrucePratt,and BarbaraSmith, Yoursin Struggle: ThreeFeministPerspectives
on Anti-Semitismand Racism (Brooklyn,N.Y.:LongHaulPress, 1984).
26. EllenWillis,forewordto Daring to Be Bad, vii.
27. Barbara Ryan.
28. HowardZinn,A People'sHistory of the UnitedStates (NewYork:HarperPerennial,
1990), 504-13.
29. For a publishedversion of FlorynceKennedy'sposition on Atticaand Naomi Jaffe's
perspective,see BarbaraSmith,"'FeistyCharacters'and 'OtherPeople'sCauses,'"in The
FeministMemoir Project: Voicesfrom Women'sLiberation,ed. RachelBlau DuPlessis
and Ann Snitow(NewYork:ThreeRiversPress),479-81.
30. Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier, "TheNew Feminist Movement,"in Feminist
Frontiers IV, ed. Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor, and Nancy Whittier (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1997), 544-45.
31. Chela Sandoval,"Feminismand Racism:A Reporton the 1981 National Women's
Studies Association Conference,"in Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras:
Creativeand CriticalPerspectivesby Womenof Color,ed. GloriaAnzaldfia(San Fran-
cisco: Aunt Lute, 1990), 55.
32. Smith,"'FeistyCharacters,'
"479-80.
33. Gluck,32.
34. James, 313.
35. Activistswho helped AssataShakurescapeincludepoliticalprisonersMarilynBuck,
SylviaBaraldini,SusanRosenberg,and Blackmale revolutionaries.
36. Adrienne Rich, "Disobedienceand Women's Studies,"Blood, Bread, and Poetry
(New York:Norton,1986), 76-84.
37. Moragaand Anzalduia.
38. I am borrowingthat phrasefromAlice Echols'schroniclingof white radicalfeminist
history.
39. LorraineBethel,"WhatChouMean We,WhiteGirl,"in Conditions:Five (1979):86.
40. Wendy Rose, "TheGreatPretenders:FurtherReflectionson Whiteshamanism,"in
TheState of Native America,403-23.
41. Thompson. See also Anne Braden, The Wall Between (Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1999); Anne Braden, "A Second Open Letter to Southern White
Women," Southern Exposure 6 (winter 1977): 50.
42. Segrest,My Mama'sDead Squirrel,12.
43. Mab Segrest,"Fearto Joy: Fightingthe Klan,"Sojourner:The Women'sForum 13
(November1987):20.
44. Mari Matsuda,"Voicesof America:Accent, AntidiscriminationLaw, and a Juris-
prudence for the Last Reconstruction," Yale Law Journal o100(March 1991): 1405.
45. Davis,"BlackNationalism,"292.
46. See Feminary: A Feminist Journal for the South Emphasizing Lesbian Visions.
SchlesingerLibraryat the RadcliffeInstitutefor AdvancedStudyat HarvardUniversity
has scatteredissues of Feminary. Duke UniversityRare Book,Manuscript,and Special
CollectionLibraryhas vols. 5-15 from 1974-1985.For analysisof the import of working
Becky Thompson 355
on this journal on Mab Segrest's consciousness and activism, see Jean Hardisty,
"Writer/ActivistMab Segrest ConfrontsRacism,"Sojourner: The Women'sForum 19
(August 1994): 1-2; Segrest, My Mama's Dead Squirrel.
47. MarilynBuck, Linda Evans, LauraWhitehorn, and KathyBoudin are among the
white political prisoners who are either currently in prison or, in the case of Laura
Whitehorn and Linda Evans, recently released, serving sentences whose length and
severitycan only be understoodas retaliationfor their principled,antiracistpolitics.
48. MarilynBuckis in a federalprison in Dublin,California,for allegedconspiraciesto
free politicalprisoners,to protest governmentpolicies throughthe use of violence, and
to raisefunds for Blackliberationorganizations.
49. MarilynBuck'spoem, "Tothe Woman Standingbehind Me in Line Who Asks Me
How LongThis BlackHistoryMonthIs Goingto Last,"is reprintedwith writtenpermis-
sion fromthe author.
MultiracialFeminism
1959 1960 1964 1965 1966 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 19
Cuban Civil Rights National Shirley The Black Angela Davis Women of All Lilith,Sinister
Revolution Act passed Welfare Rights Chisholm Woman, acquitted of Red Nations Wisdom, and
Organization elected to Toni Cade all charges founded Conditions
founded Congress I I founded
SNCC Immigrationand Stonewall Attica Trailof Combahee Com

founded NationalityAct uprising rebellion Broken River Rive
Treaties Collective Colle
State
Johnson signs Indians of Hijas de National Anna

AffirmativeAction All Tribes Cuauhtemoc Black Feminist Mae
executive order occupation Chicana group Organization Aquash
of Alcatraz killed
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found
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1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
Heightof multiracial
feminism
KitchenTable But Some of NYWomen National Bndges Los Angeles White

Womenof Us Are Brave, against Rape Women's founded rebellion Supremacist
ColorPress Hull,Scott, Conference Studies for Jewish following Beckwith
launched and Smith i Association feminists acquittal of convicted of
I at Spelman and friends police involved murdering
This Bridge Yoursin My Mama's College in Rodney King Medgar
Called My Back, Struggle, Dead beating Evers
ed. Moragaand Pratt, Squirrel,
Anzaldia Bulkin, Mab Segrest
I I Smith I
Ain'tI a Woman, MakingWaves, U.N. World African OurFeet Protest
bell hooks Asian Women Conference American Walkthe Sky, against
United of on Women, Women in Women of system
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Ourselves Descent affirma
B. J. Reagon's A Gathering Supreme Court Collective action
coalition politics of Spirit, rulingthat INS
speech Beth Brant must interpret
1980 Refugee
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Anthology,
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Encuentro:Latin Smith Women's
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Meeting, Bogota founded
Hegemonic Feminism
1963 1964 1966 1967 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1975 1976 1978 1
ofwhiteradical
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Massmobilization
CivilRights National Redstockings Ms. Against Marc

Act passed Organization founded magazine Our Will, Porn
for Women published Brownmiller New
founded
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formed
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Act Ourselves, founded legalized church Pornography
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founded
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sexual candidate
harassment In a Different How Schools
case Voice,Carol Shortchange
Gillhgan Girls,American
Association of
University
Older Women report
Women's
League
founded
Towarda ComparativeFeministMovement
CivilRights Movement(1955-1966) Black Power Movement(1966-1974)
Chicano LiberationMovement(1965-1975)
Rise of Multiracial Feminism (1970s
AmericanIndianMovement(1968-mid-1970s)
Asian AmericanMovement(1968-mid-1970s)

Recasting Second Wave Feminism

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Recasting Second Wave Feminism

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Copyright:

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M F :R C S W F

F S ,I . is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to F S .

In the last severalyears, a numberof histories have been publishedthat

ARi ........ ...........

JEB (Joan E. Biren). Courtesy of JEB Productions.

the flesh"; ChandraTalpade Mohanty'scritique of "imperialistfemi-

The Rise of Multiracial Feminism

women's undergroundnewspaperthat was published during the 191o

autonomousfeminist organizationof the early 1970s was the National

Party,the Black LiberationArmy-and other solidarityand nationalist

to be the bridgesthat everyoneassumedwouldbe on theirbacks.

Radicals, Heydays, and Hot Spots

lence of the state againstthe BlackPanthers,antiwarprotesters,and lib-

bourgeoisand reductionist.They stepped out of what antiracisthistori-

activists.35In 1981, ByllyeAveryfounded the National BlackWomen's

on the line? These radical women include political prisoners-Black,

to do in order for cross-racialsisterhoodto really be powerful.Among

I wrote,'Relationshipsbetweenwomenmatterto me morethan anything

Blueprints for Feminist Activism

erationbehind the movementsthemselves,it makes sense that histories

The woman dropsher gaze

Press, 1979), 362-72, before it was publishedin BarbaraSmith's,Home Girls:A Black

CrossingPress, 1982); Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitzand Irena Klepfisz,eds., The Tribeof

SNCC Immigrationand Stonewall Attica Trailof Combahee Com

Johnson signs Indians of Hijas de National Anna

Voting Rights Act Vancouver Coalition of National Black

National Chicana American Indian U.N. Natio

KitchenTable But Some of NYWomen National Bndges Los Angeles White

CivilRights National Redstockings Ms. Against Marc

The Feminine New York Sisterhood Congress Hyde

Continental ERAnot GeraldineFerraro Tailhook

CivilRights Movement(1955-1966) Black Power Movement(1966-1974)

Rise of Multiracial Feminism (1970s

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