Black Women + Race Relations
Black Women, Racial Ambiguity, & Unblurring The Color Lines
The reality of protecting Black women could mean realizing we can’t include everyone.
The ‘Women of Color’ initiative has been a fixture in solidarity among women with multiple, intersectional identities. Such identities often derive from shared historical experiences, social relations, and racial structures of power. And to be clear: the phrase’s origin began with Black women.
In 1977, a group of Black women who attended the National Women’s Conference in Houston, Texas, carried with them a 200-page document entitled “The Black Women’s Agenda.” During the conference, other minority women of color wanted to be included in the agenda, and Black women agreed. However, it could no longer be called the “Black Women’s Agenda.” It had to be called something else.
Hence, the term women of color was created.
The allyship fostered among women of color has always been intended to provide safe spaces of inclusion and unity despite unique differences. The great Audre Lorde said: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
