The current incarnation of Black Feminism is a political/social movement that grew out of a sense of feelings of discontent with both the Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement of the 1970s. Not only did the Civil Rights Movement primarily focus only on the oppression of black men, but many black women faced severe sexism within Civil Rights groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The Feminist Movement focused on the problems faced by white women. For instance, earning the power to work outside of the home was not an accomplishment for black feminists; they had been working all along. Neither movement confronted the issues that concerned black women specifically. Because of their intersectional position, black women were being systematically disappeared by both movements. Black women began creating theory and developing a new movement which spoke to the combination of problems, sexism, racism, classism, etc., that they had been battling. Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ... Feminism is a diverse collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women, especially in terms of their social, political, and economic situation. ... The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (or SNCC, pronounced snick) was one of the primary institutions of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. ...

One of the theories that evolved out of this movement was Alice Walker's Womanism. Angela Davis was one of the first people who formed an argument centered on intersectionality; she did this in her book, "Women, Race, and Class." Kimberle Crenshaw, prominent feminist law theorist, gave the idea a name while discussing Identity Politics in her essay, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color." Another Feminist theorist is Patricia Hill Collins; much of her work concerns the politics of black feminist thought and oppression. While many of these theorists were beginning their writing, Black Feminist groups were forming. One of these groups is The Combahee River Collective, founded by Barbara Smith; this group's primary goal was "the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking." Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an African American author and feminist whose most famous novel, The Color Purple, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. ... Defined by feminist author, Alice Walker, Womanism is a commonly used term that was coined to mean specifically African American Feminism, but it has developed into a more encompassing version of feminism that crosses lines of race and class. ... Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an African American radical activist, primarily working for racial and gender equity and for prison abolition. ... Identity politics is the political activity of various social movements which represent and seek to advance the interests of particular groups in society, the members of which often share and unite around common experiences of actual or perceived social injustice. ... Patricia Hill Collins, (born May 1, 1948-) is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park and former head of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. ...

References

• Crenshaw, K. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43(6) 1241-99.
• Combahee River Collective. 1977. A Black Feminist Statement. in Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case For Social Feminism. Zillah Eisenstein, ed.