ABSTRACT
The author focuses on the ways in which transatlantic conversations have been central to black British feminists. As a new postgraduate in Manchester, UK, in the late 1970s, it seemed self evident to her that, as a young black woman, both feminist and black, anti-racist organisations were necessary to her interests and to social justice. Her understanding of black politics was influenced by US debates about the relative fruitfulness of the civil rights and Black Power movements. The publication of work by black feminists in the USA, such as the Combahee River Collective statement, was deeply exciting, providing much needed critical theory and filling in the gaps between feminisms and anti-racist politics. This is a story of transatlantic conversations and intertextual sharing in that black women who, like her, defined themselves as feminists, avidly read US black feminist work, and some developed relationships with "black and Third World" women in the USA.
