Program Highlights
Words (Still) Conjure: Honoring the Life, Work, and Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Speakers:
Zoe Bambara, Doula and Cultural Worker
Beverly Guy Sheftall, Spelman College
Linda J. Holmes, Independent Scholar
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Survivor-Healer-Filmmaker-Writer
Facilitated by President Heidi R. Lewis
In 1970, 55 years ago, Toni Cade Bambara published The Black Woman: An Anthology, a now-classic Black feminist text featuring many of our revered and beloved icons, such as Kay Lindsey, Alice Walker, Abbey Lincoln, Nikki Giovanni, Gail Stokes, Grace Lee Boggs, Audre Lorde, Frances Beale, and Paule Marshall. One decade later, Bambara published The Salt Eaters, the classic novel that taught us "wholeness is no trifling matter." As NWSA President Heidi R. Lewis points out in “Feminists We Love: Toni Cade Bambara” (2014), Bambara gave us "a feminism that was unapologetically Black" from the time she began sharing her wisdom with the world until she passed away 30 years ago at the tender age of 56. She gave us "a feminism that was loud, strong, collective, vulnerable, powerful, communal, honest, and intimate." She gave us "the kind of Black feminism that wasn't afraid to look around and that refused to suffer fools."1 During this plenary, President Lewis will honor Bambara's life, work, and legacy alongside some of the women who were closest to her—activist Zoe Bambara, Toni’s granddaughter; Black feminist lesbian survivor-healer and award-winning writer-filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Bambara's student; as well as two of Bambara's close friends, writer, curator, and women's health activist Linda J. Holmes, and Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, past NWSA President and founding Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies at Spelman College, home of the Toni Cade Bambara Papers.
1 Heidi R. Lewis, “Feminist We Love: Toni Cade Bambara.” Toni Cade Bambara 75th Birthday Anniversary Forum, edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Heidi R. Lewis. The Feminist Wire, 2014.
An Honour Song: Feminist Struggles, Feminist Victories
Speakers:
Shariana Ferrer-Nuñez, La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
Aurora Levins Morales, Writer and Poet
Heidi R. Lewis, Colorado College & 22nd NWSA President
Gina Starblanket, University of Victoria
Facilitated by President Heidi R. Lewis
Since Donald Trump's election as 47th President of the U.S. empire, many of us have understandably asked, "What do we do now?" As we pose and respond to this question and similar ones, we should make space for our anxieties, frustrations, and fears. We should allow our sadness, disappointment, and rage to breathe. We must also make space for remembering. This is the spirit in which we are gathering this year. Our annual conference is an honour song, a space where we will remember our feminist struggles and feminist victories. In addition to asking "what do we do now," we NWSA encourages us to ask, what might become possible when we remember who we are and who we've been? What can we (re)learn by remembering the places and spaces from where we come, the places and spaces who made us who we are? What might become possible when we remember the people and communities who taught us how to resist? President Lewis will explore these and related questions during this year's presidential address. Following the address, President Lewis will continue the conversation alongside Shariana Ferrer-Nuñez, Aurora Levins Morales, and Gina Starblanket in order to breathe into memory and give way to a louder, stronger feminist honour song.
Seguimos: Honoring the Lineage, Legacy, and Leadership of Puerto Rican Feminisms
Speakers:
Zoán T. Dávila Roldán, La Colectiva Feminista en Construcción
Mayra Ivette Díaz Torres, Colectivo Ilé
Iris Morales, Activist, Writer, & Independent Scholar
Yamilin Rivera-Santiago, Activist, Writer, and Community-Based Communications Specialist
Facilitated by Jessica N. Pabón, Independent Scholar & NWSA Member at Large
Puerto Rican feminisms emerge within and develop under the material conditions in the “world’s oldest colony.” Rican feminist struggles against extractivist white settler colonial systems are also struggles against the violent logics of cisheterosexism, ableism, and capitalism. They’re struggles for landback, bodily autonomy, climate justice, and food sovereignty. As colonial subjects of the US since 1898, the Rican feminist struggle continues. In this plenary, Jessica Pabón joins Rican feminists of the diaspora and archipelago to discuss how and why these ongoing struggles dis/appear in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies classrooms, research, advocacy, and activism. In doing so, we invite the NWSA membership to a collective honoring of the legacies, lineages, and leadership of Puerto Rican feminists.