The 1990s in Context: A History of Black Women in American Politics

Abstract

The emergence of the women’s movement was untimely for Black women in general, but for a select group it was relevant. Black women, who had largely been left out of Civil Rights politics and, especially, leadership, hoped, if only briefly, that they would be able to stake a place within the women’s movement where they could promote their concerns as people who were both female and Black. As this chapter will demonstrate, that hope was both heady and intense, though short-lived. The second section of this book compares the ideological positions and political agendas of the Black women who were appointed to the Fourth Consultation of President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) to those of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) and the Combahee River Collective (CRC). By examining the ideological and political perspectives of these three Black women’s groups, the evolution of Black feminism from 1961 to 1980 can be documented.

As far as many Blacks were concerned, the emergence of the women’s movement couldn’t have been more untimely or irrelevant. Historians trace its roots to 1961, with the President’s Commission on the Status of Women chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. At a time when Black students were languishing in southern jails, when Black full time working women were earning 57 percent of what their White peers were earning, the Commission concentrated its attention on the growing number of middle-class women who were forced to enter the labor market in low skill, low paid jobs.¹