During the civil rights movement of the 1970s, disparate groups of people came together to fight and protest against the discrimination of people based on color, gender and creed. Even though these movements protested white male patriarchy and the disenfranchisement of people of color, their goals were not in sync with one other group that suffered more under the hands of patriarchy and racial domination. This group encompassed black woman, who suffered patriarchy as well as racial discrimination. The larger women’s rights movement ignored race as an important construct in the fight for freedom and equality. The universalization of the larger feminist movement was significant but it still ignored that being a white women came with certain privileges that black women did not have. The other factor was the patronizing nature of the greater feminist movement which was led mostly by white women. This led to racial oppression and prejudice within the feminist movement.
Out of frustration with the larger feminist movement, the National Black Feminist Organization was formed in 1973. It had its location in the racially diverse city of New York. The new black feminist movement came up with a manifesto which denoted that “racism and capitalism have trampled the potential of black people in the country and thwarted self-determination the black woman is demanding a new set of female definitions and recognition of herself of citizen companion and confidant, not a matriarchal villain or step stool bay-maker” (Zoharah-Simmons 189). Black women especially those living in the South experienced racial prejudice everyday and some of it came from white women they worked for in domestic services.
It is not only the white feminist movement that black feminists had problems with. They found it difficult to participate in the greater fight against racial discrimination. Fellow black men doubted the ability of black woman to stand firm against brutal retaliation from the racially segregated and abusive system. Black men believed that women were objects that belonged in the kitchen and it was up to them to control their bodies and sexuality. The black civil rights movement had a gender problem just like the feminist movement had a racial problem. This problem can be illuminated by the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the face and patron of the civil rights movement resisted placing women in positions of authority. One woman who tried to enmesh herself in the woman testified that “sexism was definitely a problem throughout all civil rights organizations. Dr. King not surprisingly- like most if not all men in the movement who were products of the black Church and American culture was sexist” (Smith 48.). Black men refused to address problems of gender citing the importance of their movement just the same way white women thought that issues of race would dilute their message.
In conclusion, the black feminist movement of the 1970s was a movement within two bigger movements. It emerged out of black women’s realization that white women asked for solidarity in movements but did not want to address issues of racial inequality in the feminist movement. Black women realized that even though they shared the same concerns with white women and black men, their concerns were not going to be addressed by any of them. The black feminist moved even morphed into smaller movements such as the black lesbian feminist movement whose positions and issues were more complex.
Works Cited
Smith, Barbara. Racism and Women's Studies. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 1980;
National Women's Studies Association: Selected Conference Proceedings. 5(1):48-49.
Zoharah-Simmons, G. Martin Luther King Jr. Revisited a black power feminist pays homage to
the king. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 2008; 24(2):189-213
