Leading feminist scholar to lecture March 22
Author, activist, and scholar Barbara Smith will discuss "Black Feminism: My Next Chapter," at 7 p.m. Monday, March 22, in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.
A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Some of Smith's books, including The Truth that Never Hurts and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, will be available for purchase after the lecture. Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored by Ujima, Office of Student Diversity Programs, Speakers Bureau, and the Gender Studies Program.
Smith has played a groundbreaking role in opening 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.
Smith 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, N.Y., and is serving her second term as a member of the city's Common Council. She has received a number of awards and honors, including the following: the 2009 Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College Achievement Award, a nomination in 2005 for the Nobel Peace Prize, the 2000 Church Women United Human Rights Award and a 2000 profile in Essence magazine's special 30 th anniversary issue honoring Black women leaders.
