More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The Black Feminist in Public series continues with a conversation with Kaila Adia Story, professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Louisville, co-host of the award-winning podcast Strange Fruit and is the author of the recently published The Rainbow Ain’t Never Been Enuf: On the Myth of LGBTQ+ Solidarity.
“Black feminist thinkers and scholars are the blueprint for not only Black feminist liberation but queer liberation, trans liberation,” said Kaila Adia Story.
Autumn Breon is using performance and mixed media art to both celebrate Black women’s achievements and honor their struggles. Her latest performance, Dignity Denied, shines a light on the case of Adriana Smith.
“I wanted to show what lack of autonomy, what surveillance looks like, and durational performance felt like the best way to highlight her situation.”
“You might have a six-week abortion ban. You might have whatever other oppressive policies in place. We have always found ways to aid and abet each other, and we always will.”
“Langston Hughes called [A’Lelia Walker] the ‘Joy Goddess’ of Harlem’s 1920s,” said A’Lelia Bundles, great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker and author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, out June 11.
“Now, her life was not always happy. But I think his idea was that she used her wealth, her influence and her homes to create a joyful space and a welcoming space for a wide range of people.”
The Combahee River Raid was a military operation during the American Civil War led by Harriet Tubman on June 1-2, 1863. Historian Edda L. Fields-Black—this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History—reflects on Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.
“What I speculate is that the Union told the enslaved people who she was. And her presence facilitated the enslaved people in trusting the Union. We know, from some of the sources I’ve brought together in [my latest book] Combee that Harriet Tubman was on the ground in the raid, that she participated in the burning of buildings, and that she went to the slave cabins and coaxed the people there to come onto the boats and come to freedom. So how she convinced them to do that, we don’t know, but they did trust her, even if they didn’t know her entire backstory.”
Marcela Howell, an advocate and policy strategist, is retiring after 35 years of advocating for women’s rights and reproductive freedoms. The founder and former president of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, Howell spoke with Ms.’ Janell Hobson about the current state of affairs, reproductive justice, and why more of us need to listen to Black women.
“If Black women in their full force come out and vote in elections, conservatives lose; their policies lose. If you want to control Black women, you control their bodies, control their votes, control what they learn in school, control their history.”
Ms. spoke with film producer Nicole London about learning Harriet Tubman’s visions of freedom during the Civil War.
“Her story was really well-documented. And that’s all the more disgraceful about how much we still don’t know about her story.”
On September 25, Black feminist scholars Farah Jasmine Griffin and Janell Hobson took part in a public conversaton about their respective new books, discussing Black literature and the Black feminist imagination.
“When I talk about ‘Black feminist imagination,’ I am thinking of how Black women have been able to articulate the presence of an absence. How do we give voice to silence?”
Award-winning Haitian-American/Canadian writer and scholar Myriam Chancy’s newest novel, “What Storm, What Thunder,” commemorates the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake that struck Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, killing 250,000. The book has taken on new relevancy with the recent August 14 earthquake on the island.
Chancy discusses her new novel, the fate of her birth island, and why more people need to listen to Haiti’s women.
As the month of June, also known as “Black Music Appreciation Month,” comes to an end, the Black Feminist in Public series will highlight the significant intellectual work of Daphne A. Brooks.
Los Angeles based singer, activist and spiritual coach Monique DeBose has a new song dedicated to all women of color.
“My intention with this song was to put it out at this point in time as just a celebration. I feel like for so long, we have not had the spaces and the public squares to just celebrate and acknowledge ourselves. If we’ve done it, it’s had to be in enclosed circles, and at this point, I’m ready now to just have it be out in public in a way that like has no shame has no trepidation, no insecurity.”