ABSTRACT
Black feminist activism predates the founding of the United States and is bound up with foundational questions of dignity, equality, and justice, all of which remain at the forefront of contemporary political discourse. The history of the Black feminist movement is rich and nuanced, including a range of organizations and views that both overlap and diverge over questions of gender, race, sexual orientation, and interlocking oppressions. This chapter provides a brief look at the Black feminist movement, focusing on Alice Walker's Womanism and the Combahee River Collective's statement on Black feminism as two enduring yet diverging perspectives. After pulling apart these two views and considering the issues that divided them, the chapter turns to a contemporary voice who audaciously and courageously remixes Black Feminism/Womanism in her fight for marginalized groups: Maxine Waters. A rhetorical analysis of her speech at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in March 2018 demonstrates how Waters enacts a rhetorical strategy that embraces an interlocking system of domination or intersectional approach. She unifies Womanist and Combahee River Collective (CRC) Black Feminist strategies coupled with intersectionality principles to unite the concerns of multiple communities in the fight against systematic oppression and the white patriarchy.
