Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton

DUCHESS HARRIS is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Macalester College, USA.

"There has to be something said for being able to succeed in concisely communcating the issue of Black feminism and politics, but I think Duchess Harris has done just that." - Feminist Review "A detailed account of how black women organized and identified themselves within the context of racism and black sexism in a capitalist society." - CHOICE "I have been longing for a book that can conceptually interweave the legacy of the Combahee River Collective, the longstanding hostility by some in the black community toward the movie The Color Purple, and the political style of Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton offers us a little known political history - it is required reading for any serious student and scholar of contemporary African American s women s political participation. This book provides readers a new and valuable conceptual landscape of how African American feminists have engaged electoral and cultural politics despite consistent and powerful opposition. What a refreshing and much needed addition!" - Michele Tracy Berger, Author of Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS"Harris's analysis is both hopeful and disheartening. On the one hand, Harris provides oral, archival and literary histories of Black women without whom neither the Black Power nor the feminist movements would have progressed. On the other hand, Harris demonstrates that these movements, so beholden to Black women, have never adequately or fairly represented their needs and desires. Worse, they have too often asked Black women to choose between identities, prioritizing one over others." - Christine E. Hutchins, On the Issues Magazine

• PART I: THE '90S IN CONTEXT: A HISTORY OF BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICAN POLITICS PART II: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN BLACK FEMINISM PART III: BLACK WOMEN'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARTY POLITICS PART IV: DOUBTING THE DEMOCRATS: CURRENT DISENCHANTMENT AND POLITICAL FUTURES