The Combahee River Collective (CRC) (/kəmˈbiː/kəm-BEE)[1] was a Black feministlesbiansocialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980.[2][3] The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians.[4] Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, while Delaney and Manditch-Prottas argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation.[5][6] The Collective was a group that met to discuss the intersections of oppression based on race, gender, heteronormativity, and class and argued for the liberation of Black women on all fronts.
The Collective is perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement,[7][8] a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity politics as used among political organizers and social theorists,[9][10] and for introducing the concept of interlocking systems of oppression, including but not limited to gender, race, and sexuality, a fundamental concept of intersectionality.[11] Gerald Izenberg credits the 1977 Combahee statement with the first usage of the phrase "identity politics".[12] Through writing its statement, the CRC connected themselves to the activist tradition of Black women in the 19th century and to the struggles of Black liberation in the 1960s.[13] The document embarked upon the separation of a gender-only focused feminism and highlighted the significance of interlocking systems of oppression.
^Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition (Merriam-Webster, 1997; ISBN0877795460, p. 272.
^Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal, Combahee River Collective Statement, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, ISBN0-8476-8346-X, p. 524.
^Manditch-Prottas, Zachary (2019). "Meeting at the Watchtower: Eldridge Cleaver, James Baldwin's No Name in the Street, and Racializing Homophobic Vernacular". African American Review. 52 (2): 179–195. doi:10.1353/afa.2019.0027. ISSN1945-6182. S2CID197851021.
^The full text of the Combahee River Collective Statement is available here.
^Smith, Barbara, ed. (1983). Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. New York, NY: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. pp. 272–282. ISBN0-913175-02-1.
^Hawkesworth, M. E.; Maurice Kogan. Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, 2nd edn Routledge, 2004, ISBN0-415-27623-3, p. 577.
^Sigerman, Harriet. The Columbia Documentary History of American Women Since 1941, Columbia University Press, 2003, ISBN0-231-11698-5, p. 316.
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