The Historical Evolution of Black Feminist Theory and Praxis

Abstract

As a theoretical construct, feminism presently has more raps than Queen Latifah and a plethora of additives to preserve its freshness. Yet, prior to contemporary scholars' efforts to identify variations in women's lives, feminist theory suffered from what Adrienne Rich (1978) describes as white solipsism-to think, imagine and speak as if whiteness described the world (p. 299). Considering the history of racial tensions in the United States, it is not surprising that it was African American women who engendered the initial challenge to petty-bourgeois feminism by refusing to sacrifice their community needs to the demands of racist, elite, White women. Throughout the nation's history, African American women have struggled with White women on many political fronts. For example, in 1921, at the National Women's Party Convention, Alice Paul received Black delegates' complaints over disfranchisement with indifference. On another occasion, in 1970, White feminists' reluctance to aggressively organize against the political persecution of Angela Davis continued this legacy of White women rejecting and alienating Black women. These experiences and countless others spurred Black women to shape feminist theory and praxis to include issues unique to them. Patricia Hill Collins (1990) locates four major themes in the construction of Black feminist thought, all of which are generated from a Black woman's standpoint (Collins, 1989).' First, Black women empower themselves by creating self-definitions and self-