At an event in late April, 1979, Barbara Smith, with megaphone, protests nine murders of women of color that took place in the first months of the year. Photograph by Ellen Shub.

Support Black Women Radicals’ fundraiser to open a physical location for The School for Black Feminist Politics.

ma·roon

/məˈro͞on/

Noun.

maroon or Maroon: A Black person of the Americas who escaped slavery and formed or joined a free and often secluded settlement or a descendant of such a person.

Black Women Radicals (BWR) is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black feminist activism around the world. Since 2020, we have offered and hosted more than 150 free events, workshops, and political education initiatives about Black feminist thought and behavior around the world.

The School for Black Feminist Politics (SBFP) is the political education hub of Black Women Radicals. The mission of SBFP is to empower Black feminist politics from internationalist, intersectional, and multidisciplinary perspectives. Since its inception, we’ve hosted over 20 teach-ins that center Black feminist productions, politics, and leadership in the universal power struggle for liberation.

Currently, we are fundraising to establish a school–a maroon–for us. For all of us.

Donate to our fundraiser here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/black-women-radicals-a-school-for-all-of-us

At Black Women Radicals, we believe in the power of Black feminisms as a political education strategy and tool for unifying across borders, binaries, and boundaries. Given past and present attacks against Black and other marginalized communities and our right to teach, learn, organize, and dissent, we are fundraising to open and own a physical location in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area, particularly in the Northeast or Southeast of D.C.

We envision the School to not only be a place where communities of all backgrounds can learn, organize, and commune and have access to programming rooted in the Black Radical Tradition, but we also envision the School as a space for co-working; an exhibition space for local Black organizers, artists, writers, and creatives; a recreational facility; a library consisting of Black Diasporic archives, books, journals, films, and ephemera; a community garden; and so much more.

Our fundraiser is inspired by leaders within the Black Radical Tradition who created spaces and communities of refuge such as Nannie Helen Burroughs and the National Training School for Women and Girls; Mary McLeod Bethune and the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls; the Colored Women’s Club Movement; Citizenship and Freedom Schools; and the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School.

With your donation and support, we can make our dream of opening a maroon a reality. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your contribution and for supporting us. We appreciate you.

About the Organizer:

My name is Jaimee Swift. I am a political scientist, an avid reader, a lover of God and His people, and the founder and executive director of Black Women Radicals and The School for Black Feminist Politics.

I am inspired by the power and self-determination of Black people around the world, and our unrepentant and unyielding fortitude in creating liberatory spaces for ourselves and posterity. My faith and politics are rooted in the Black Radical Tradition, Diasporic Black Feminist Politics, and Black and Third World Liberation Theology. I am inspired by my grandmother and mother, who are the sources of my Black feminist politics. I am inspired by the power of community and internationalist networks of solidarity because I believe it is the power of the people that catalyzes true revolutionary change.

I created Black Women Radicals and The School for Black Feminist Politics as maroons to resist the marginalization and exclusion of Black women and gender expansive people’s leadership in academia and society writ large. As an academic, I also created Black Women Radicals and The School for Black Feminist Politics because I know that the university will not save us. The government will not save us.

It is the people who do the work of saving ourselves.

I always had a dream of opening a community space where people feel seen, welcomed, loved, understood, and heard. This dream has stayed with me, and when I founded Black Women Radicals and The School for Black Feminist Politics more than five years ago, opening a physical location was always on the forefront of my mind–and it still is. My dream and vision have intensified after bearing witness to the political repression and attacks against freedom of speech, our right to protest, and our right to teach and learn about Black, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities.

For the past three years, I have been searching for property, contacting realtors, raising funds, and so much more to make this dream an ultimate reality. I have laughed, cried, fought, prayed, and dreamed so much throughout this process. I believe in this vision with all my heart because now, more than ever, we need this space–we need a space of our own where we can dream, create, grow, and understand ourselves and the world without fear of retribution.

We deserve a space for us.

I want to thank everyone for their support of Black Women Radicals and The School for Black Feminist Politics throughout the years. It means so much to me and I am truly humbled and grateful.

Help Black Women Radicals Open A School For All of Us