“We Make Freedom”

Abstract

Since the inception of Black studies, Black women activists and scholars have carved out an intellectual space to uncover, (re)define, contextualize, and validate Black women's realities. These efforts have manifested themselves in various related developments, including the initiation of Black women's studies (see Brewer, 2000; Hull & Smith, 1997) and the proliferation of explicitly Black feminist/womanist theories and analyses over the past two decades (e.g., Dove, 1998; Taylor, 1998a, 1998b). These theories are now being included in core introductory Black studies texts and infused into Black studies curriculum. Although many Black feminist theories differ in their emphases and conclusions regarding liberation, there are several areas of convergence, namely, that Black women are oppressed on multiple interlocking levels. Articulations of Revolutionary Black Feminism (RBF) has increasingly become visible in the literature and has provided a radical analysis of these multiple systems of oppression (e.g., Hamer & Neville, 1998; James, 1999); by radical analysis, we mean one that more explicitly outlines the impact of capitalism and class on Black