ABSTRACT
For centuries, black women have asked and answered important questions about how the world works and their place in it. Black women in America have understood that their experiences were in many ways similar to those of black men during the institution of slavery but different in other ways. Truth articulated the fact that black men and black women performed the same types of labor, endured various forms of brutality, including assaults on their physical bodies, and separation from their biological offspring at birth and over the life course. At the same time, truth also understood that the benefits of whiteness extended to white women who were considered by virtue of their birth worthy of protection, especially from black men. Black feminist sociology has the potential to enhance society’s understanding of the experiences of black women in the US, and black feminist sociology also has the potential to provide the exploratory, explanatory, and predictive power.
