Combahee River Collective - Developing The Statement - Process of Writing The Statement

Process of Writing The Statement

Throughout the mid 1970s members of the Combahee River Collective met weekly at the Cambridge, Massachusetts Women's Center.

The Collective held retreats throughout the Northeast between 1977 and 1979 to discuss issues of concern to Black feminists. Author Alexis De Veaux, biographer of poet Audre Lorde, describes a goal of the retreats as to "institutionalize Black feminism" and develop "an ideological separation from white feminism", as well as to discuss "the limitations of white feminists' fixation with on the primacy of gender as oppression.".

The first 'Black feminist retreat' was held July 1977 in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Its purpose was to assess the state of the movement, to share information about the participants’ political work, and to talk about possibilities and issues for organizing Black women." "Twenty Black feminists ...were invited (and) were asked to bring copies of any written materials relevant to Black feminism—articles, pamphlets, papers, their own creative work – to share with the group. Frazier, Smith, and Smith, who organized the retreats, hoped that they would foster political stimulation and spiritual rejuvenation."

The second retreat was held in Nov. 1977 in Franklin Township, New Jersey, and the third and fourth were scheduled for March and July 1978. "After these retreats occurred, the participants were encouraged to write articles for the Third World women's issue of Conditions (magazine), a journal edited by Lorraine Bethel and Barbara Smith." The importance of publishing was also emphasized in the fifth retreat, held July 1979, and the collective discussed contributing articles for a lesbian herstory issue of two journals, Heresies and Frontiers.

"Participants at the sixth retreat... discussed articles in the May/June 1979 issue of The Black Scholar collectively titled, The Black Sexism Debate...They also discussed the importance of writing to Essence to support an article in the September 1979 issue entitled I am a Lesbian, by Chirlane McCray, who ...was a Combahee member...The seventh retreat was held in Washington, D.C., in Feb. 1980."

The final Statement was based on this collective discussion, and drafted by African-American activists Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier and Beverly Smith.