But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies

by Akasha Gloria Hull

Book Overview

Published in 1982, But Some of Us Are Brave was the first-ever Black women's studies reader and a foundational text of contemporary feminism.

Featuring writing from eminent scholars, activists, teachers, and writers, such as the Combahee River Collective and Alice Walker, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Bravechallenges the absence of Black feminist thought in women's studies, confronts...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558618988
• ISBN13: 9781558618985
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: Feminist Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Altering the Racist and Sexist Paradigm in Academia

This compliation of essays lays down the curricular and research agenda for the establishment of a Black Women's Studies program in the academy. It weaves personal narrative, literary criticism, and empirical analysis which cogently argues that Black Studies and Women's Studies in academia do not adequately address the multiple consciousness of Black women through discourses on racism, sexism, classism, and sexuality. The authors of the various articles articulate the need to look at Black women's lives as multi-faceted and complex, neither wholly positive or negative. I am not sure if the authors decided to change the name of the book to make it more marketable but the original title is "All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men,But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies." I tend to prefer the original title because it brilliantly captures the dilemmas that Black women face in higher education and the wider - negation of their experiences as Black people and as women. The book delivers an historical examination of the Black Women's Studies movement that began in the early 1970's with the formation of the Combahee River Collective, a black feminist organization and the National Black Feminist Organization. It also pushes for the development of a Black Women's Studies program that reaches out beyond the halls of academe and situates its curricular and research agenda in political and economic organizing on behalf of Black women of all educational and economic classes.