Black women taught us : an intimate history of Black feminism

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Title:

Black women taught us : an intimate history of Black feminism

Author:

Jackson, Jenn M., author.

ISBN:

9780593243336

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xxii, 342 pages ; 22 cm

Contents:

Harriet Jacobs taught me about freedom -- Ida B. Wells taught me about radical truth telling -- Zora Neale Hurston taught me about the reclamation of our labor -- Ella Baker taught me why we should listen to young people -- Fannie Lou Hamer taught me to be (un)respectable -- Shirley Chisholm taught me to hold whiteness accountable -- Toni Morrison taught me that Black women are powerful -- The Combahee River collective taught me about identity politics -- Audre Lorde taught me about solidarity as self-care -- Angela Davis taught me to be an anti-racist abolitionist -- Bell Hooks taught me how to love expansively.

Personal Subject:

Jackson, Jenn M.

Subject Term:

African American women political activists -- History.

African American feminists -- History.

African American women -- Political activity -- History.

African American women -- Social conditions.

African Americans -- Social conditions.

African Americans -- Civil rights -- History.

Geographic Term:

United States -- Race relations -- History.

Genre:

Informational works.

Summary:

"Jenn M. Jackson has been known to bring deep historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women's freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost in the meantime? A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women's intellectual and political work at the center of today's liberation movements. Across thirteen original essays that explore the legacy and work of Black women writers and leaders--from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde--Jackson sets the record straight about Black women's longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements, despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods"--

Holds:

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	305.4889607 JAC	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	305.4889607 JAC	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

A reclamation of essential history and a hopeful gesture toward a better political future, this is what listening to Black women looks like -from a professor of political science and columnist for Teen Vogue .

"Jenn M. Jackson is a beautiful writer and excellent scholar. In this book, they pay tribute to generations of Black women organizers and set forward a bold and courageous blueprint for our collective liberation."-Imani Perry, author of South to America

This is my offering. My love letter to them, and to us.

Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work- Why has Black women's freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost because of our refusal to engage with our forestrugglers' lessons?

A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women's intellectual and political work at the center of today's liberation movements.

Across eleven original essays that explore the legacy of Black women writers and leaders-from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde-Jackson sets the record straight about Black women's longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods.

For a new generation of movement organizers and co-strugglers, Black Women Taught Us serves as a reminder that Black women were the first ones to teach us how to fight racism, how to name that fight, and how to imagine a more just world for everyone.

Author Notes

Jenn M. Jackson, PhD , is an award-winning professor of political science at Syracuse University and a columnist for Teen Vogue, where they write the popular "Speak On It" column that "explores how today's social and political life is influenced by generations of racial and gender (dis)order." A queer genderflux androgynous Black woman, Jackson primary research is in Black Politics with a focus on Black Feminism, racial trauma and threat, gender and sexuality, and social movements. Black Women Taught Us is their first book.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

The meaning of Black women's transformational teachings. Jackson, a political science professor and columnist for Teen Vogue, presents these 11 essays as "love letters" to influential Black women "who built our movements and taught us how to love ourselves whole." The author links their personal history with a vital tradition of intellectualism and activism spanning nearly two centuries. Jackson considers celebrated figures such as Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, and Audre Lorde, but they also examine less well-known ones, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisholm, and members of the Combahee River Collective. In each case, Jackson explores the experiences and achievements of influential Black feminists as a means of charting historical continuities in an ongoing struggle for liberty and equality. The orienting insights provided by Black women's storytelling is a consistent point of emphasis. As Jackson notes the impact of Toni Morrison's writing on their own self-understanding, "There was a sense of inner knowing and outer recognition of being Black and of living Blackly without regard for a white world that would no doubt want to co-opt, water down, and erase our stories." The author's historical summaries provided are perceptive and engaging, as are the analyses of current battlegrounds over so-called "identity politics." Jackson offers intriguing, if occasionally underdeveloped, commentary on the significance of intersectionality in understanding systemic oppression, the dynamics of respectability politics, and the dimensions of the prison industrial complex. Also suggestive is the author's take on the motivations behind conservatives' outrage over critical race theory and the stakes involved in debates over how American history is taught. Overall, this "intimate history" ably highlights the longstanding importance and contemporary relevance of Black feminism, as well as the challenges that remain in having its voices heard and acted upon properly. Galvanizing appraisals of Black women's enduring search for freedom. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Kirkus Review

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