Extract

An Interview With Dr. Cynthia Dillard (Nana Mansa II of Mpeasem, Ghana, West Africa)

BETTINA L. LOVE AND VENUS E. EVANS-WINTERS

BL: In your opinion, why is a book like this necessary?

CD: There are three reasons why this book is important. First, this book begins to center the work of the early feminists of color in such a way that it doesn’t forget the true legacy of Black feminism. That’s an important piece. Often when you see edited volumes, they are just about what is happening today but they fail to lean on what has happened in the past. So I think that’s one of the things that this book does beautifully. Second, I think it takes up the current conditions of Black womanhood, Black feminism, and Black womanism in really interesting and complex ways. So it takes today’s sister, today’s theories, today’s ideas, today’s current events, today’s material conditions and lays them at the feet of these grandmothers of color, again in ways that honors the long struggle of Black feminist struggles and contributions. Finally, I think Black Feminism in Education: Black Women Speak Back, Up, and Out makes more complex the idea of Black feminisms (with an “s”), taking up the whole notion of identities in different and interesting ways. Many of these new articulations start gendered and raced studies in Black girlhood. Many of us who were in the first wave or second wave of Black feminism didn’t do that...