Women, Race and Class: An Activist PerspectiveAuthor(s): Angela DavisSource: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter, 1982), pp. 5-9Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New YorkStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40004176Accessed: 24/10/2009 02:42

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tivities and values - ways to unite her re- sponsibilities to self, children, friends, community, profession, and students - ul- timately I think that Phyllis' s deepest quest was as a spiritual and social reformer. If she was always a teacher, as her sister Margaret Johnson observed of her, Phyllis used and imparted knowledge to serve change. I believe that Phyllis loved learn- ing for more than intellectual understand- ing or elegance of analysis. Phyllis was dedicated to making the lives around her - and well beyond her - ones of greater fulfillment. For her, learning served action.

Thus, her efficiency was a race against time and history. Her courage and resolu- tion were animated by a zeal to bring

herself and us closer to perfection. Her demands on self and others were so great that one might miss the pain and beauty in her search. Yet the spirit behind Phyllis' s quest was surely what made her efforts so heroic to students that they not only ad- mired her but also wished to emulate her accomplishments, to form their own goals and work indomitably to achieve them. The sudden death of someone with what seemed like unlimited potential - because she had already achieved so much - is a loss we feel deeply because its extent seems incalculable. We cannot measure the future of which we have been de- prived. Yet we can try to fill it more seri- ously and more faithfully for having known and worked with Phyllis Jones.

NOTE: This text was read as a memorial minute at the Oberlin College General Faculty Meeting on November 16, 1982. The audience knew that Phyllis's body had been found in her car, parked in the garage of family friends, late in the after- noon of August 11. The death by carbon monoxide poisoning was ruled a suicide by the county coroner. Phyllis had taken a medical leave from Oberlin in November 1981, but earlier in the summer of 1982 she attended The Feminist Press's Yale Summer Institute, on reconstructing the canon of American literature. Her final decision, following many months of inter- mittent depression and apparent recover- ies, was both shocking and grievously plausible for those close to her.-P.G.

Women, Race and Class: An Activist Perspective Angela Davis

The following article was originally a Keynote Address deliv- ered at the Fourth National NWSA Convention, atHumboldt State University, in Arcata, California, on June 17, 1982.

I want to begin by talking about the case of two Black women who are veteran activists in the struggle against racism, Julia Wilder and Maggie Bozeman. Let me just take a little survey: how many of you have never heard the names Julia Wilder and Maggie Bozeman? [Ed. Note: Most hands go up. ] That says something about some of the problems we are confront- ing in this country as far as communication is concerned, and about some of the problems we are confronting in our understanding of issues affecting women.

Julia Wilder and Maggie Bozeman are from the Black Belt of Alabama. Julia Wilder is seventy years old; Maggie Boze- man, fifty-one. Their activities in the civil rights movement, the movement against racism, go way, way back. In particu- lar, they have been instrumental in developing a campaign for voting rights in that area, and as a result of their efforts to register Black people to vote and to assist those who have difficulty, they are presently banned from their hometown, very much in the same way that a woman in South Africa by the name of Winnie Mandela is banned. They were convicted in January 1982 of voter fraud. Because they assisted older people and people who, as a result of the racist educational system that is particularly acute in the South, never managed to learn how to read and write well enough to fill out a ballot, they were tried and convicted by an all-white jury and sen- tenced to four and five years, respectively, in the state peni- tentiary. They went before the parole board in February and it was decided that they might be released from prison, but only under the condition that they remain within a very small

Angela Davis addressing the Fourth National NWSA Conven- tion. Photograph by Lorraine B. Miller.

Women's Studies Quarterly X:4 (Winter 1982) 5

radius, Tuskegee, under the guard of an official. They are only able to leave Tuskegee if they are officially guarded. They are not able to visit with their family and their friends in their hometown of Carrollton, Alabama.

Now, on the one hand, it sounds incredible that this kind of banning could take place in this country, because this is a tool that is used, and has been used, in South Africa, in order to prevent the mass movement from growing and developing by banning the leaders. But, on the other hand, it should not sound so incredible, in 1982, considering that we have a man in the White House whose major claim to fame consists in the roles that he played in B-class movies.

I want to talk a little bit about the overall social and political consciousness that will make for the most effective approach to women's studies. I think, in the first place, it is important to recognize that sexism can never be seen in isolation. It has to be placed in the context of its interconnections with racism, and especially with class exploitation. When I mentioned Julia Wilder and Maggie Bozeman, I assumed that the major- ity of you would not have heard of their names because there has been a conscious effort to prevent this kind of informa- tion from being widely disseminated. But I also mentioned their names because the lack of knowledge regarding what is happening in the movement, the progressive movement, the movement against racism, the activist movement, and the lack of knowledge with respect to those women who have made important contributions to our history are indicative of trends that go all the way back.

We could talk about Black women, and women of color, and working-class women, who, if we analyzed history cor- rectly, have probably been just as instrumental as Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony or Lucretia Mott; or I could mention some other women whose names have been totally forgotten. Who is able to talk about Lucy Taylor Prince? Who knows about her contribution? She was born in Africa and brought to this country as a slave. She achieved her freedom and lived in the state of Vermont, where she was able to acquire some land. She confronted some problems - white people trying to take her land away from her. She went to court, acted on her own behalf, and became probably the very first woman on record to address what is now the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Why don't we know that?

And why don't we know about Catherine Ferguson, who opened what was probably the first sex-integrated and race- integrated school for children? This information ought to be readily available. Why is it lacking - even from so many accounts of women's history, not to speak of the larger history of our country? Why is it that our knowledge is so often lacking, also, with respect to those white women who have understood the interconnections? Why is it that Pru- dence Crandall is not considered to be a major historical figure in this country?

Let me say, at the outset, that I am mentioning these women not for purposes of criticizing anyone, but in order to point out the big gaps in the information that is available to us and some of the problems that we have to overcome if we are

going to be able to establish the most effective women's movement and the most effective approach to women's studies. It is particularly important to recognize the degree to which the contributions of women of color have been ig- nored, distorted, and misunderstood, because what is need- ed today is a multiracial women's movement, a multiracial approach to women's studies; and often there is a lack of understanding among white women activists, students, and teachers, about the seeming failure of women of color to be interested in women's issues, or women's studies. Why is it that on most campuses most of the women's studies courses are attended by all white women? Why is it that so often the ranks of women's demonstrations do not include large num- bers of women from racially and nationally oppressed com- munities? Why is it that the struggle for the ERA today is represented primarily as a struggle conducted by white wom- en only?

I want to talk a little bit about the historical background, because sometimes by looking at history we are better able to understand our contemporary situation. The first organized effort for women's rights, of course, coincides with what we know as the Seneca Falls convention, held in July 1848. The majority of the women who were there came from what we would call a middle-class background; there were some working-class women there, but no Black women, as far as we know - which might appear a bit strange in light of the fact that the white women who called and organized that conven- tion had acquired their consciousness and had learned how to organize politically, had forged all of the basic skills that are needed to develop a political movement, through their in- volvement in the struggle against slavery.

Why is it that virtually all of the issues raised in the resolu- tions that came out of the 1848 convention are seen only within the context of a certain group of women: white wom- en - and primarily white women of the emerging middle classes? What were the reasons for this failure to understand that if one were going to struggle for women's rights in 1848, one also would have had to struggle for the rights of women slaves? Why weren't some of what were clearly issues of sexism confronted by women who were held in chains in the South? Why, when the Civil War broke out and it was decided by the leadership of the women's rights movement to focus their attention and channel their efforts into a move- ment that would ensure that the North would be victorious, was that seen as setting aside women's issues in order to ensure a Union Army victory? It was the approach taken by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton when they called upon all women involved in the women's rights move- ment to become active in the Woman's National Loyal League. Why was it not understood that the struggle to end slavery was also a women's struggle and would have a direct impact on the ability of all women to advance the struggle for women's rights?

And why is it that Sojourner Truth in 1851 had to give an oration whose refrain was ' 'Ain't I a woman?" What was the message of that oration? Was it understood by the white women who were gathered there? That oration is probably

6 Women's Studies Quarterly X:4 (Winter 1982)

the most widely known speech of the nineteenth-century women's movement, but I always wonder if its underlying meaning is fully understood. Let me dwell for a few moments on an analysis of the role that Sojourner Truth played at the conference in Akron, Ohio, where she delivered that speech. It was a gathering of women from the Midwest - all white women, who wanted to connect with the emerging wave of the women's rights movement three years after Seneca Falls. And, of course, at that time, the majority of white women were not accustomed to speaking out. The first women's conferences, as I am sure most of you know, were presided over by men, because one of the ways in which white women were oppressed in those days consisted in not developing the kind of talents necessary for women to deliver public lectures; women didn't do that.

Now, the conference in Akron had a woman as a chairper- son. Some men came in who had decided that the confer- ence should not take place. The clergy, of course, was one of the major forces at that time trying to undermine the wom- en's movement. And so these men were screaming out to the women, "How can you talk about demanding the right to vote? You can't even walk over a puddle without a man helping you. You can't even get into a carriage without a man helping you." And it was true in those days; those were some of the ways in which women were oppressed. The women had no answer to that. But there was a Black woman, a former slave, who was also there, who had taken to going around to the white women's conferences. And most of the time she was looked upon as if she were some kind of a strange alien. Since she was Black, obviously she was most concerned with the struggle against slavery; what was she doing at women's conferences?

At any rate, when it looked as if the meeting were going to be totally disrupted, Sojourner Truth got up and began to walk toward the podium. Many of the women there did not want her to speak; and, as a matter of fact, whispered to Frances Dana Gage, who was chairing the session, "Don't let her speak. She'll confuse the issues. She'll talk about aboli- tion. This isn't a conference on abolition; this is a conference on women's rights." But, fortunately for us, Frances Dana Gage was a principled woman and did announce her. As soon as she began to speak, the men shut up. And she made some very simple but very eloquent and extremely meaning- ful observations which can be very helpful to us today. She simply talked about her experiences as a woman, a Black woman, a slave woman, a woman who worked. Her experi- ences were not the same as the experiences of the other women who had gathered there; yet she could speak more militantly than they about womanhood and about women's rights. Because of her involvement in struggle, because she had been active in the campaign against slavery, she had organized, she had spoken publicly, she was not afraid to put the men who were there in their place.

The important dynamic for us to understand is that while Sojourner Truth spoke from her own experiences as the voice of Black women during that era, as a matter of fact she could speak more effectively for all of the women there than

Angela Davis. Photograph by Lorraine B. Miller.

those women could speak for themselves, because of the political experiences that she had accumulated. She had had to fight for her own survival, as a slave; she had had to struggle for her children - she speaks about the fact that practically all of her children were sold off to slavery. By virtue of her activist experiences, there were lessons that could have been learned from her that would perhaps have assisted the women's rights movement during that era to move forward far more rapidly than it managed to do at that time.

When we talk about the struggle for the emancipation of women - and this is what I think is an activist perspective - no matter how we are involved in the women's movement, whatever our connection, there must be a consciousness regarding the degree to which women's issues - the fight for the liberation of women - must revolve, first of all, around the majority of women and those women who have the most to gain: working-class women and women of color. It is

Women's Studies Quarterly X:4 (Winter 1982) 7

important for white women who are involved in the women's movement to take note of the degree to which the expe- riences of working-class women and women of color are valid for the entire women's movement. It is important to stop accepting the divisions and the gaps and the assumption that there can be a "white, middle-class women's movement." There cannot be a white, middle-class women's movement that is going to accomplish anything of lasting value.

And believe me, my sisters, I get very upset when I see the media portraying the executive with her briefcase as indica- tive of the advances that the women's movement has made over the last ten years. Let me say that as a Black woman I get upset also with all those folks who point and say, "Look, we have a Black man doing this, or a Black woman doing that - we have one in the United Nations, we have them on television now, we have them on the boards of directors," because that has nothing to do with the situation of the masses of Black people. The accomplishments of those women executives have nothing to do with the situation of the majority of women in this country. The situation of working-class women has actually deteriorated over the last few years. In 1975 we were supposed to be making 65 percent of what male workers made, and now it's around 59 percent. For women of color, it gets much, much worse than that; and as for older women, two-thirds of them have to survive on less than $4,000 a year.

Our political and social consciousness should always em- brace an understanding of our connection with the masses of women. And there should be vigilance every moment - the kind of vigilance that will allow us to understand the degree to which we often universalize our own particular situation. Often it is assumed that all women are white; and, of course, when you say "Black people" or "Puerto Ricans" or "Chi- canos," then you are talking about some genderless group. It is assumed too often even today that when you talk about women's issues you are talking about issues that affect one small group of women. And it is not pointed out how the fight against plant shut-downs, for example, is a women's issue.

Unemployment - think about it. Visualize ten million peo- ple without work. What does that mean? Think about human beings who are suffering, who are in pain, who are not able to feed their children because some corporation knows that it can move to another state where the labor movement is not as organized, or move to another country, and make more profit. When you consider the fact that well over a quarter of a million auto workers alone are unemployed, that is a women's issue. Think about all the women, and especially the women of color, who have been able to make inroads in areas from which we have traditionally been excluded, who are now not only fired or laid off but don't have any prospects for employment of that sort in the near future.

We are living in some very hard times. The economic situation is worse than it has been since the 1930s. There are already soup lines all over the country. We are living during a period in which racism has reached incredible heights. The Ku Klux Klan is on the rise and is still being encouraged by those in power. I don't only talk about the ones who wear the

white robes but the ones who wear the black robes and the three-piece suits, because the ones who wear the white robes would not be out there as visible and as bold and audacious as they are if they did not recognize that they have some very good friends in some of the most powerful circles in this country.

I am a Communist. You don't have to be a Communist, however, to recognize that there's something wrong with the system, which is based on profits and not on the needs of people. Historically, racism has always been used, in the first place, to pit workers against one another so that white workers can be led to believe that just because their skin is white like Mr. Rockefeller's skin, they have more in common with their oppressors than they do with their Black or Chi- cano or Puerto Rican or Native American Indian sisters and brothers.

I point this out because when we attempt to develop an approach toward challenging racism within the women's movement, we have to recognize that white people, white women in particular, should not fight racism simply because they want to help those of us who are hurt by it. The vast majority of people in this country, and especially the masses of women, stand to benefit from the most militant, the most assertive, challenge to racism. Concrete benefits come from that struggle for white women. Consider affirmative action, for example: where did that concept come from? And when we talk about challenging racism, we should see it as some- thing that it is absolutely necessary to eliminate if we are going to move on and achieve some of the victories that affect us as working-class people, as women, as disabled people, as lesbians and gay men. Racism historically in this country has been demonstrated to be the most devastating, the most murderous tool to prevent the emergence of the kind of united movement that will allow us to move forward in general. And, on the other hand, each time the Black Liber- ation Movement has moved forward, it has brought benefits for the majority of people in this country.

I want to conclude by alluding to some of the contempo- rary issues that have to be confronted. I spoke about voting rights at the beginning of my presentation. Before 1965, Black people in the South had not voted since the 1870s and the 1880s. At age 21 I tried to register to vote in my home- town of Birmingham, Alabama, and I could not register to vote because I was Black. And now they are threatening to do exactly the same thing all over the South today. The worst kinds of assaults are being imposed upon Black people in struggle.

There is, for example, a man by the name of Eddie Carthan, who was the mayor of Tchula, Mississippi, near Jackson. He became the first Black mayor elected in the Delta in over 100 years. And what did he do as a result of his election? He used the little power that mayors have to establish child-care centers; and, of course, if there's any- thing that women in this country need, it is a free system of child-care centers. He established a center for the disabled - this is in a little town in Mississippi - and he went on to establish free health care, and a recreation center for youth.

8 Women's Studies Quarterly X:4 (Winter 1982)

And then the plantation owners (you know there are still plantations in the South) and the bank officials got together and decided they were going to get rid of this man. They padlocked City Hall, they stopped payment on all checks to public employees, they cut his salary from $600 to $60. He appointed a Black police chief; they appointed a white police chief. This white man got a posse together of armed men, and went down and took over City Hall; and then Eddie Carthan went with the Black police chief to arrest him and his posse, and put them in jail. Then, the white police chief swore out a warrant before his sister-in-law, who was the court judge of that district, against the mayor for assault on a police officer. Of course, that meant that he was knocked out of office immediately. He got sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary. After that they went on to charge him with murder, and he is presently facing a murder indictment which, because he was convicted on the other charge, means that he will get an automatic death penalty.

I mention that because it is important for you to recognize that these are the kinds of things that are happening in this country today. These are the kinds of measures that are being taken in order to prevent the emergence of the kind of movement that can turn this country around - because a united mass movement that involves the contributions of the women's movement today can eventually turn all of those trends around that appear to give us such a bleak and dismal picture of the future. And if these kinds of things are happen- ing to the Black movement, believe me, they are going to happen to the women's movement. It has always been the case. You need to understand that dynamic. Do not wait until it happens to you to get involved in the struggle, because by that time it's too late.

And if you do not have the information about what is happening because there is a conspiracy in the established media to rob you of the ability to acquire that information, what does that mean? You can't just sit back and expect it to come to you. You have to search for it. And those of you who are teaching women's studies, or who are students in wom- en's studies programs, need that larger consciousness in order to be able to understand the content of the courses, in order to be able to have a perspective that goes beyond the traditional "white, middle-class perspective" to the women's movement and women's issues.

And finally, as women, all of us have a very profound responsibility to become involved in the struggle for nuclear disarmament. Whatever we are doing, we have to get out there now and be counted. You can begin to feel the power that we wield potentially when you get out there in the streets. You can see that this country is governed and con- trolled economically by some men who refuse to acknowl- edge the way in which history is moving. But people are rising up all over the world and saying that we want to use the resources of our lands, we want to use our talents, our labor, to build societies that are going to allow us to develop as decent, creative human beings - societies in which there will eventually be no more sexism, no more racism.

What we have to be conscious of is that the only kind of

movement that will be able to achieve an end to the threat of nuclear war - like the movement that will be able to ensure the ratification of the ERA, that will guarantee our reproduc- tive rights, that can achieve child care for everyone, and equal pay for equal work - is going to have to be a multiracial movement, and the connections must be understood. There is a very special interest that women of color and working- class women in general have in bringing an end to the military build-up and in guaranteeing that the military budget is drastically slashed, because there is no way that all of the demands that we are making can be made as long as $6,648,000,000,000 are supposed to go into the military budget over the next five years. And if that happens we probably won't be around long enough to even spend all of those trillions of dollars.

So let me appeal to you, my sisters, to acknowledge the dangerousness of these times, and each and every one of you should acknowledge your own special responsibility. If you allow yourself to be counted, if you impart your knowledge to others, it is going to be necessary to keep vigilance all the time against racism. Don't let any of your colleagues or comrades or sisters make a racist statement without calling her or him on it right there - not because you want to criticize them, but because you know the only way we're going to be able to get our business taken care of is if we purge our movement as much as possible of the terrible influence of racism.

We have a whole world to gain. We can look forward to a world in which sexism and racism and homophobia and ageism and all of the oppressions we see around us can be eradicated. It is going to be a long struggle but we can do it if we start right now and reevaluate our history. Make sure that you study. Go to the places where you can find the informa- tion. Go back and read the whole history of the women's rights movement. Go read the history of women's suffrage. Ask yourself, whenever you begin to talk about a women's issue, what is the special perspective of working-class wom- en, of women of color? Do not assume that working-class women and women of color are going to flock to what they see as basically a white, middle-class women's movement. That is not going to happen. Do not assume that all you have to do is invite them and they will come. That will not happen, because they are only all too conscious of the detrimental influence of racism. And do not assume that just because a woman is a Black woman or a Chicana woman, she is the one who has to deal with racism and its connection with sexism. Do not assume that those of you who are "white, middle- class" can talk about abortion rights and leave it to the sisters of color to deal with sterilization abuse. Do not assume that when you fight for the ERA you leave it to your working-class sisters to talk about the problems that may emerge in terms of the attack on protective legislation. It is your responsibility - our responsibility - to acquire the kind of consciousness that will allow us to create a strong, militant, solid, united move- ment for the liberation of all women.

Angela Davis 's latest book is Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House, 1981).

Women's Studies Quarterly X:4 (Winter 1982) 9

Article Contentsp. 5p. 6p. 7p. 8p. 9

Issue Table of ContentsWomen's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter, 1982)Front MatterEditorial [pp. 2-3]In Memoriam: Phyllis Jones [pp. 4-5]Women, Race and Class: An Activist Perspective [pp. 5-9]Race and Class: Patriarchal Politics and Women's Experience [pp. 10-15]Cultural Views of Gender in Works of Art and Contemporary Advertisements: An Approach for the High School Classroom [pp. 16-19]Liberating Teaching [pp. 19-24]Women's Spiritual Quest: A Topic for Courses and Conferences [pp. 25-27]National Council for Research on Women [pp. 28-39]Review: NWSA News And Views [pp. 40-45]Review: Archetypal Perspectives: A Review of Two New Books [pp. 45-46]Newsbriefs [pp. 47-50]Back Matter