Black Women Radicals: Who We Are & What We Represent

Black Women Radicals (BWR) is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women’s and gender expansive people’s activism throughout time, space, and place in Africa and the African Diaspora. We are here and always have been.

Who We Are

Black Women Radicals (BWR) is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women’s and gender expansive people’s radical political activism. Rooted in intersectional and transnational Black feminisms and Womanisms, we are committed to empowering Black transgender, queer, and cisgender radical women activists and gender expansive activists by centering their political, intellectual, and cultural contributions to the field of Black Politics across time, space, and place in Africa and the African Diaspora.

We are a collective that uplifts Black people of diverse gender identities and gender expressions, educational backgrounds, nationalities, religious and/or non-religious affiliations, languages, ethnicities, and more and who have diverse pathways of and to Blackness and to Black person-hoods and ways of being, but who are all committed to uplifting, centering, and honoring Black women and marginalized genders in their entireties. Our mission is to overcome the systemic erasure of Black women and gender expansive peoples’ radical activism by ensuring that their voices, perspectives, grassroots organizing, theoretical frameworks, leadership, and memory are seen, heard, felt, and known. For so long, Black women and gender non-conforming and non-binary people’s political leadership and movement building has been overlooked in academia and society writ-large. Our vision is to create and catalyze safe, inclusive, and informative spaces and critical conversations on and about historical, contemporary, and transnational Black women’s and gender expansive peoples’ activism. Through our blog, our database, community-centered events, research, and more, our purpose is to disrupt this erasure by uplifting and educating on and about Black women and gender expansive people’s political activism on the African continent and in the African Diaspora.

Our Work

The mission, vision, and the work of Black Women Radicals are manifested in various pillars including:

• The School For Black Feminist Politics (SBFP) is a Black feminist political education initiative and hub powered by Black Women Radicals. Established in 2020, the mission of SBFP is to empower Black Feminisms in Black Politics by expanding the field from transnational, intersectional, and multidisciplinary perspectives. The SBFP’s goal is to illuminate what has often been obscured and neglected in regards to our Black feminist histories, political memories, and productions, so that our past, present, and future understandings of Black feminist thought and behavior can be understood more fully and completely. The SBFP seeks to explore, amplify, and illuminate global Black feminist politics and movement building through our Community Conversations; teach-ins led by Black feminist artists, activists, creatives, and educators; and through research and scholarship on and about Black feminisms.

• Our Community Conversations are monthly community-engaged and informed events that concentrate on themes, politics, and more on and about Black women and gender expansive people. The purpose of our Community Conversations is to catalyze a safe, informative, and transformative space for Black women and gender expansive people to freely communalize with one another and to discuss various topics as it pertains to our livelihoods, our politics, our activism, our emotional, spiritual, and physical well-beings, our histories, our imaginations, and more. We host and collaborate with various Black feminist activists, educators, and organizers to curate events that expand our knowledge base and our political understandings. Some of our event series include the Caribbean Feminisms Series curated by Nana Brantuo and Dr. Andrea N. Baldwin; the Ongea Mama Series in collaboration with the African Women’s Development Fund; and our Black Trans Thought and Histories Series, curated by Naomi Simmons-Thorne and emerald faith. We also host our Instagram live series, “Afrekete Convos”, which highlights and uplifts Black women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming activists, artists, and changemakers from around the world. The series is in honor of and inspired by the self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” that was and is Audre Lorde.

• The Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD) historizes and visualizes Black women’s radical political activism in the African Diaspora in efforts to build academic, political, and community engagement, dialogue, knowledge production, research, and education about Black women’s significant legacies as socio-political agents of radical change. By housing a database of historical, transnational Black women activists and leaders, we are seeking to overcome the erasure of Black women’s political leadership, organizing, theorizing, and socio-political movement building in Africa and in the African Diaspora that has often been ignored in favor of white and Black cis-het male 1 charismatic leadership––especially in the field of Black Politics. BWRD serves as a vehicle to center Black women’s historical political memory, scholarship, epistemologies, and leadership in socio-political movements that may not be taught in academia and in community and public spaces.

• The Black Women Radicals Blog, Voices in Movement, highlights the power of Black women and gender non-conforming and non-binary activists around the world. By interviewing and sharing the stories of transnational, Black women and non-binary activists and how they catalyze change in their respective communities, “Voices in Movement” serves as an online hub for discussion, Diasporic exchange and communication on and about Black women’s activism and issues/themes concerning Black women and non-binary people.

• The Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities Project is a collaboration between Black Women Radicals and the Asian American Feminist Collective (AAFC). Hosted by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), this project looks to Black and Asian American feminist histories, practices, and frameworks on care, community, and survival for the tools and strategies to continue to build towards collective liberation and is an ongoing relationship and commitment to practicing solidarity. Solidarity at its core is about relationships. Solidarity means: we understand and commit to taking responsibility for one another — and that is the radical feminist future we believe in. What does it mean for us to hold space together? To grieve, to heal, to rest, to express joy? To be accountable? This project asks, what can we do together?

What we stand for: The Black Women Radicals Manifesto

On What “Radical” Means To Us

When we say Black Women Radicals, we employ Angela Davis’ definition of radical which “simply means grasping at the root.” To us, a Black Woman Radical is a Black (12*footnotes) woman-identifying person –– irrespective of occupation, class, or educational background –– 3 who “grasps at the root” for revolutionary transformation in all aspects of life and whose politics are based in an intersectional, transnational, Black radical feminist/Womanist liberation model that is queer, trans*, non-binary, and disabled inclusive, centered, affirming, and loving.

With this, below are characteristics of what we believe a Black Woman Radical represents:

• To us, a Black Woman Radical” seeks to uproot heteronormative white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia, racism, sexism, fatphobia, aporophobia, ableism, xenophobia, colorism, classism, ageism, respectability politics, elitism, and any other violent manifestation that is the antithesis of a radical, Black feminist solidarity and collectivism.

• A Black Woman Radical seeks to not reproduce these toxic structures in movement building and desires to transform oppressive structures through their various talents, perspectives capacities, and mediums (i.e. grassroots organizing, the arts, academia, etc.) in everyday praxis and in concert with other Black women. A Black Woman Radical not only recognizes the importance of centering themselves (i.e. physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually/holistically, politically, academically etc.) but centering other Black women, especially Black women who are further marginalized. A Black Woman Radical believes a better world is possible; in fact, they believe that a Black feminist world and liberation praxis is possible.

Pioneering Black lesbian scholar, activist, and organizer of the Combahee River Collective, Barbara Smith said, "What I really feel is radical is trying to make coalitions with people who are different from you. I feel it is radical to be dealing with race and sex and class and sexual identity all at one time. I think that is really radical because it has not been done before” (Collins 2015, p. 251). With this, we believe in collaborating, working with, organizing, and catalyzing 4 community with organizations and people who adhere to Davis and Smith’s visions and articulations of “radical.”

Our Values

Our values and our work are rooted in a Black radical feminist/Womanist liberation model that is queer, trans*, non-binary, gender expansive, and disabled inclusive, centered, affirming, and loving. As Black American feminist and scholar bell hooks notes, “To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients––care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication” (footnote 5). Building on hooks’ ideals of love, our work is rooted in Love, Empowerment and Resistance:

• Love and respect for Black people;

• Empowerment of Black women and gender expansive people's lives, bodies, activism, mental, emotional, political, intellectual, and knowledge productions and;

• Resistance against global white capitalist heteronormative patriarchy, misogynoir, transmisogynoir, homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia, ableism, carceral feminisms, militarism, policing, classism/elitism, sexism, ageism, colorism, xenophobia, whorephobia, fatphobia, colonialism, imperialism, religious persecution, and any other oppressions that seek to dehumanize Black women and gender expansive people structurally, symbolically, and institutionally in society writ-large and in Black civil societies transnationally.

On Our Black Feminist Thought & Praxis

What Intersectionality Means To Us

Our Black feminist thought and praxis is rooted in intersectional, Black feminist thought and behavior. The theory “intersectionality” was first coined by Black American civil rights activist, lawyer, and critical race theory scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in her essay, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics” (1989). In analyzing three legal cases, in the essay Crenshaw showcased the limitations of United States’ judicial systems, feminist theory, and anti-racist policies and how they viewed Black women from a “...single issue analyses”, particularly in regards to how Black women must contend with racial disrimination and gender discrimination. With this, Crenshaw stated, “Because the intersectional experience is greater 6 than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated” (Crenshaw, 1989).

On Transnational Iterations of Intersectional Black Feminist Thought & Praxis

While our Black feminist thought and praxis is rooted in Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, we also are rooted in and recognize historic and contemporary global iterations of intersectionality and Black feminist thought, behavior, and praxis that preceded Crenshaw’s conceptualizations of intersectionality and that are articulated in diverse ways and mediums on the African continent and in the African Diaspora. For example, our Black feminist thought and praxis is rooted in Afro-Brazilian anthropologist, human rights defender, and scholar Lélia Gonzalez’s theory of “Amefricanidade”, which “references both the black diaspora and indigenous populations of the Americas, signaling their histories of resistance as colonized peoples” (Alvarez & Caldwell, 2016). Our Black feminist 7 thought and praxis is rooted in recognizing and centering Black American transgender pioneer, Lucy Hicks Anderson, and her articulation of gender identity and expression before contemporary terminologies/language on gender identities existed. Our Black feminist thought and praxis is rooted in how Trinidadian journalist and activist Claudia Jones was able to assert an “intersectional” analysis of Marxism in her essay, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman” (1949). Our Black feminist thought and praxis is rooted in Nigerian activist and literary theorist Molara Ogundipe’s theory of "Stiwanism" (Social Transformations in Africa Including Women) and her centering of African women and African feminisms. Our Black 8 feminist thought and praxis is rooted in centering the perspectives and leadership of Black American disabled activist, Johnnie Lacy, and in focalizing Black disabled women in our work.

Our Stance On Academic Authority on Black Feminist Thought

We support a Black feminist praxis that does not center academics as the "authority" of Black feminist thought while excluding Black trans*, queer, cis, and disabled women and non-binary, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people who are not in academic spaces and who are often overlooked/excluded in those spaces. We believe the politics, perspectives, intellectualism, and activism of working class, poor, and marginalized Black women are just as valuable and important as those in academia. We believe a Black feminism that simply adheres to and/or is only for academics, to us, is not Black feminism. As Black American activist Assata Shakur said, “Before going back to college, I knew I didn’t want to be an intellectual, spending my life in books and libraries without knowing what the hell is going on in the streets. Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory. The two have to go together” (Shakur, 1988).9

On Blackness, Womanhood(s), PERSONHOOD(S) and Being(s): Centering Black Women AND Non-Binary, GENDERQUEER, GeNDER EXPANSIVE, AND GENDER NON-COnforming People on the African Continent and in the Diaspora

Afro-Brazilian bisexual activist and politician Marielle Franco tweeted in 2017, “Falar de raça é falar da dominação e escravização de um povo, do apagamento, silenciamento e retirada da sua humanidade. Falar sobre raça é falar sobre a desigualdade que estrutura a nossa sociedade até hoje.” Black Canadian non-binary activist, storyteller, and organizer Janaya Future Khan wrote, 10 “What is more radical than living in the fullness of your truth and inviting others to do the same? The strength it requires to create a new way of being that doesn’t rely on the status quo or the norms of others, to push back against binaries like ‘male’ and ‘female’, also challenges other binaries that are taken as immutable truths?”

While Black women, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, and non-binary people in Africa and in the African Diaspora may share common experiences in regards to politics, race consciousness, activism, socio-economic, and political inequities and more, we recognize the processes and impacts of racial formation(s) and racialization and racial, gender, class, disabilities, and political and feminist consciousness differs in Africa and in the African Diaspora. More importantly, while white heteronormative capitalist ableist patriarchy impacts us all and there are similarities of how its violence specifically impacts Black women, we also recognize its oppressive impact(s) had/has/have different historical, contemporary, cultural, national, and political implications for Black women, gender non-conforming, non-binary people, and genderqueer people transnationally.

While our organizational name is Black Women Radicals and our mission is to overcome Black queer, transgender, and cisgender women’s activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora, we are emphatically inclusive and dedicated to centering Black non-binary, genderqueer, gender expansive, and gender non-conforming people’s activism. While heteronormative and heterosexist revisionist history has and continues to try to maintain gender binary system(s), we recognize many African, Afro-descendant, and Indigenous communities have always lived beyond the gender binary and have varying gender formations, gender identities, gender fluidities, and gender expressions/languages that existed (and still exist) and were lived before enslavement, colonialism, and imperialism.

We also recognize while gender––just like race––are social constructions, these social constructions have physical, psychological, cultural, and material consequences that thoroughly impact Black communities transnationally––especially Black gender expansive, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people. Although contemporary language such as “genderqueer”, “gender non-conforming” and “non-binary” exist, because of the heteronormative linguistic violence that has attempted to erase these communities historically, it is often difficult to document historical Black gender expansive and gender non-conforming activists and leaders. Through our work, especially through our Blog, another facet of our mission is to disrupt this erasure by highlighting contemporary Black non-binary, genderqueer, and gender expansive activists and leaders in Africa and the African Diaspora. We are open to constructive conversations from Black genderqueer, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and gender expansive people on the best and most empowering ways to be allies and to create an inclusive community.

With this, we are dedicated to centering not only how injustices impact Black women, gender expansive, and non-binary people transnationally but also how they resist, organize, catalyze joy and community, and how their leadership has shaped Black Politics in their respective communities. Moreover, we are dedicated to uplifting the diverse and beautiful iterations of Blackness and being(s), Black womanhood(s), Black personhood(s), and non-binary-hood(s), Black (queer, trans*, disabled) feminism(s)/Womanism(s), and global Black feminist political thought(s) and behavior(s) to create transnational, Black feminist solidarities.

1 Davis, A. Y. (1990). Women, culture & politics. New York: Vintage.

2 Please note that the activists quoted are not affiliated with Black Women Radicals. We have quoted and cited them as inspirations to who we are and our work. Also, please note that the links to certain articles in the document, Black Women Radicals is not affiliated with any of those organizations.

3 When we say “women”, we are emphatically inclusive of transgender women. Transgender women are women. Period.

4 Hill, C. P. (2015). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.

5 hook, b. (2000). All about love: new visions. New York: William Morrow.

6 Crenshaw wrote: “I want to suggest further that this single-axis framework erases Black women in the conceptualization, identification and remediation of race and sex discrimination by limiting inquiry to the experiences of otherwise-privileged members of the group” (Crenshaw 1989: 140).

7 Sonia E. Alvarez, & Kia Lilly Caldwell. (2016). Promoting Feminist Amefricanidade: Bridging Black Feminist Cultures and Politics in the Americas. Meridians, 14(1), V-Xi. doi:10.2979/meridians.14.1.01

8 Ogundipe’s theory of Stiwanism can be found in her book, “Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical Transformations” (1994).

9 Shakur, A. (1988). Assata: An Autobiography. London: Zed Books.

10 “To speak of race is to speak of the domination and enslavement of a people, of the erasure, silencing and withdrawal of their humanity. To talk about race is to talk about the inequality that structures our society to this day.” To view this tweet and Marielle Franco’s other tweets, you can find them here in Brazilian Portuguese.