Barbara Smith: From Combahee River Collective to Black Lives Matter

Watch a conversation exploring the history and trajectory of radical Black Women’s activism and organizing around racism, sexism, and homophobia.

All roads lead back to Black women. Black women are everything, and we owe them the world.

Since the early 70s, Barbara Smith has pushed intersectionality and Black feminist thought into our daily culture, language, and lives. And today, we want to share her brilliance with you all.

If you don’t know Barbara, you absolutely should. She and her colleagues in the Combahee River Collective are credited with originating the term “identity politics,” defining it as an inclusive political analysis for contesting the interlocking oppressions of race, gender, class, and sexuality — today, it’s known as intersectionality.

Barbara has been a thought leader, publisher, and elected official.