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Dissertation Information for Kimberly Springer

NAME:
- Kimberly Springer

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Women's Studies

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1999)

ADVISORS:
- Mary E. Odem
- Regina E. Werum

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Beverly Guy-Sheftall

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: "Our politics was Black women": Black feminist organizations, 1968-1980

Abstract: This dissertation examines Black feminist organizations from 1968 to 1980 using an historical perspective. Employing sociological frameworks and methods, I offer a narrative of a little-documented movement of the late 1960s protest era. Oral history interviews and content analysis of organizational records helped me construct the emergence, activities, and decline of five organizations. These organizations were the Third World Women's Alliance, the National Black Feminist Organization, the National Alliance of Black Feminists, the Combahee River Collective, and Black Women Organized for Action.

Specifically, resource mobilization and collective identity theories allowed me to reconstruct and analyze four areas: (1) the sociopolitical conditions for the emergence of a Black feminist movement, (2) the emergence narratives of five Black feminist organizations, (3) a collective identity termed "Black feminism," which incorporated concepts of race, class, and gender, (4) the organizational structure of Black feminist organizations, and (5) reasons for the decline of Black feminist organizations.

My findings bridge resource mobilization and collective identity theories. Black feminists developed interstitial collective identities and organizations from between the cracks of the civil rights and women's movements. Neither of these movements could accommodate Black women's multiple identities, alternately ignoring Black women's race, gender, or class concerns. Black feminists, as Black, female, and often working-class individuals, faced significant challenges in garnering the financial and human resources necessary for the sustainability of local or national social movement organizations (SMOs). Another challenge to Black feminist organization's viability was the unrecognized plurality of Black women's political ideologies, life situations, and visions for Black feminism. As this dissertation shows, Black feminist organizations, in their formative years, failed to fully take into account differences between Black women based on their class aspirations and sexual orientation.

I conclude from these findings that in order for Black feminist organizations to survive, they must grapple with the complexity of Black women's identities, and organizations to optimize existing ties to Black communities. Critically important, however, Black feminists must come to terms with their individual and collective identities, as well as the ways discrimination shapes identities that are critical to effective organizing.

MPACT Scores for Kimberly Springer

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-02-02 22:03:34

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