The Black British women’s movement started over 40 years ago is still fighting the same battle

[IwantToRetire]

In 2018, The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain, which Stella Dadzie wrote with Beverley Bryan and Suzanne Scafe, was republished as a feminist classic. When it first came out in 1985, many saw it as groundbreaking. As one woman said at a launch event, it was the first time she had seen the stories she had heard around her mother’s kitchen table in print.

All three of us had been actively involved in OWAAD (Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent) which brought feminists and <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/inews.co.uk/news/technology/olive-morris-google-doodle-68th-birthday-london-activist-today-456482?ico=in-line_link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">community activists together under a national umbrella. ...

Race, gender and class inequalities were rife. Relations with the police were fraught. The <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/inews.co.uk/news/uk/battle-lewisham-rediscovered-footage-casts-new-light-forgotten-race-riot-84213?ico=in-line_link" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">National Front had it in for us. We wanted to define our own narrative, articulate our lived realities, to speak to an audience that was rarely represented in print. ...

Black feminists have rarely known the luxury of introspection. To us, Black lives matter regardless of gender – in our inner-city ghettos, our schools, hospitals and prisons, as well as on those desperately <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/inews.co.uk/news/baby-people-crammed-migrant-boat-distress-call-channel-2593480" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">overcrowded dinghies.
Our concerns go beyond statues and stolen loot. Whatever our roots – migrant, immigrant or British-born and bred – our fore-parents hailed from countries where women and girls continue to face a litany of gendered brutalities. From <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation%23:~:text=Female%20genital%20mutilation%20(FGM)%20comprises,organs%20for%20non-medical%20reasons." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FGM and <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/www.unicef.org/protection/child-marriage%23:~:text=Child%20marriage%20refers%20to%20any,in%20childhood%20across%20the%20globe." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">child marriage, to <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/faqs.html%23h8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sex trafficking and <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/xQ70P/www.mukwegefoundation.org/the-problem/rape-as-a-weapon-of-war/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rape as a weapon of war, their voices form part of our chorus.
^^
So, yes, it’s good to see our book back on the shelves, repositioning Black women at the heart of the ongoing struggle for equality, social justice and human rights. And if its new readers take anything from the latest edition, let’s hope they can dwell on the positives.
Our context may have evolved, but the legacy endures. We face an uphill struggle, rooted in a long, resilient history of Black, female agency. Past experience shows that we are at our most powerful, both locally and globally, when we make common cause with others who share our outrage at the sluggish pace of change.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/black-british-womens-movement-40-years-fighting-same-battle-2645653

Article is behind a paywall but has been archived at https://archive.ph where you just need to paste the inews web link into the box on the archive web site.

Thanks OP - an excellent article, clearly highlighting what’s changed - and what hasn’t. I’ll share it.

So strange to find it in the "i". Hopefully it will get more coverage.

Thank you OP.
Past due for a new edition of this book.

Bloody hell, some of those stats are even worse than I would have guessed. I knew about the appalling situation with regards to women in labour, but not how bad the comparison was for employment and prison numbers.

Apparently its also available as an audio book https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/662-heart-of-the-race

I haven't seen this publicised anywhere but apparently Black History Month this year focuses on women.

‘Saluting Our Sisters’ and the #WEMATTER movement during Black History Month 2023 https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-intros/celebrating-our-sisters-saluting-our-sisters-matriarchs-of-movements-wematter/

Thanks for posting-the maternity outcomes are particularly tragic. And maddening.

Really interesting article, thanks for highlighting.

Interesting article - I'm going to look at getting the book

I must admit I haven't read the book, and have got so used to listening to info, might look at getting the audio version.

I really like the idea of women who were directly involved in political actions and campaigns writing about it, rather than years later some academic or student reading papers in a library then trying to tell a story.

There was a really bad example of how wrong current thinking can be in trying to interpet the past, which unforunately was promoted by FiLia. Some young student went through a lot of 70s women's liberation newsletter and then wrote something that had so little to do with what they were about it was almost comedic, accept that it is now present as "history or even her story". Of course may not have been helped by doing research at Glasgow Women's Library who supervised her. Also odd as she could have just interviewed women who were that at the time and still living!

I always used to think story papers etc., was really important. It never occured to me that years or even decades later those reading them would inevitably (even with intended bias) misrepresent what they read. Because their view of the world was from their lived experience and so effectively they couldn't understand in the same way as those from a lived experience of decades ago.