The Combahee River Collective Statement

The Combahee River collective Statement was a black feminist lesbian organization in Boston that took place from 1974 to 1980. The gathered women fought for the rights of black women. They reinforced the idea that in order for the black women to be free, the end of racism, sexism, and class oppression must end. These women constantly met together in order to plan and conduct action campaigns that would help them regain their rights. This statement demonstrates and expresses the arguments the women have and the reason why they have chosen to take this rough path.

Strong emotions were triggered within myself while reading the statement these powerful and courageous women have said. These women have made so many sacrifices in order to regain the rights of black women in the country, including sacrificing their lives. While reading the statement I noticed something very interesting that made me really think about their purpose of doing all this. In their statement the women claim, “We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough”. This really demonstrated that what the women want is something so basic; this demonstrates that they only need the basics of human rights and they are not requesting/fighting for something that can be considered radical and impossible. It really emphasized all the hardships that the women had to go through to achieve something that every human could achieve without struggle. Just the fact that they were black and they were women made them struggle. It just clearly shows the unfairness and cruelty the women had to face and fight against in society. Also the women claim, “the major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions”. This lead me to think of the suffer of these women; they not only had one problem to deal with, but rather a lot. Hence, the women had to face multiple problems such as racism and sexism and solve them in order to achieve their final goal of equality amongst men and women. Therefore, this organization of women clearly was one of the first steps that brought change to women’s rights in society.