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Barbara Smith is an author, activist, and independent scholar who has played a groundbreaking role in opening up a national cultural and political dialogue about the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender. She was among the first to define an African American women’s literary tradition and to build Black women’s studies and Black feminism in the United States. She has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s.
She has edited three major collections about Black women: Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (with Lorraine Bethel, 1979); All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, 1982); and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, 1983. She is also the co-author with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, 1984. She is the general editor of The Reader’s Companion to U. S. Women’s History with Wilma Mankiller, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, and Gloria Steinem, 1998. A collection of her essays, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom was published by Rutgers University Press in 1998.
She was cofounder and publisher until 1995 of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U. S. publisher for women of color. She resides in Albany, New York and in November, 2005 was elected to the Common Council.
RECENT AWARDS:
2005 -- Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
2000 -- Church Women United Human Rights Award.
2000 -- Essence Magazine, Profiled in lead feature article honoring Black
women leaders for the special thirtieth anniversary issue.
1999 -- Albany Chapter National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People Arts Award.
1998 -- The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom,
Honorable Mention, Gustavus Myers Human Rights Book Award.
1996-1997 -- Fellow, Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College.
1995-1996 -- Scholar-in-Residence, Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture.
Keynote Address
Saturday, May 10, 5:30 -7:00 pm, Crossroads Center
Black Feminism: My Next Chapter. This presentation examines the experience of taking decades of organizing in progressive movements for social change into the arena of holding elected office as a member of the Albany Common Council since 2006. Smith will address such questions as: Why did it seem an appropriate next step? What are the differences and commonalities between movement organizing and community organizing in a poor, predominantly people of color neighborhood? How is Black feminism useful in defining priorities in this new context? The presentation will also look at priorities for collective activism in the current political context.
Keynote Workshop
Sunday, May 11, 9:00 - 10:50 am, Crossroads Center
Part of the Solution. Barbara will lead a discussion of effective ways to do grassroots organizing and to work in coalition across multiple differences, including race, gender, sexuality, and class.
Here is the history of our past keynote speakers and also an archive to all colloquium schedules.
Last updated June 1, 2008
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