(1977) - A Feminist Statement – Combahee River Collective
The Combahee River Collective, a group of Black queer socialist feminists, wrote their Feminist statement (1977) out of frustration with existing liberation movements that failed to address their oppression. They criticized white feminists for ignoring racism and Black nationalist movements for promoting male dominance and homophobia while focusing narrowly on racial issues. The Collective coined the term "identity politics" and developed a socialist analysis of how racism, sexism, homophobia, interconnected under capitalism to create their specific conditions of oppression — an approach that would later influence the concept of intersectionality. They maintained that because Black women faced the most severe oppression at the intersection of multiple systems, their freedom would necessarily create conditions for everyone's liberation, making their work both particular to their experiences and universally transformative.
We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses [...] We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation.