Combahee River Collective

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The Combahee River Collective (CRC) (/kəmˈbiː/ kəm-BEE)^[1] was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts from 1974 to 1980.^[2][3] The Collective argued that both the white feminist movement and the Civil Rights Movement were not addressing their particular needs as Black women and more specifically as Black lesbians.^[4] Racism was present in the mainstream feminist movement, while Delaney and Manditch-Prottas argue that much of the Civil Rights Movement had a sexist and homophobic reputation.^[5][6]

The Collective is perhaps best known for developing the Combahee River Collective Statement,^[7][8] a key document in the history of contemporary Black feminism and the development of the concepts of identity politics as used among political organizers and social theorists,^[9][10] and for introducing the concept of interlocking systems of oppression, including but not limited to gender, race, and homophobia, a fundamental concept of intersectionality.^[11] Gerald Izenberg credits the 1977 Combahee statement with the first usage of the phrase "identity politics".^[12] Through writing its statement, the CRC connected themselves to the activist tradition of Black women in the 19th Century and to the struggles of Black liberation in the 1960s.^[13] The document embarked upon the separation of a gender-only focused feminism and highlighted the significance of interlocking systems of oppression.