Black History Month just passed. Women’s History Month is here.
People across the world likely have been and likely will continue speaking the names of legendary Black women and feminists like Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Toni Morrison, Angela Y. Davis, and maybe even Audre Lorde. People like me have been and will continue insisting we also remember Ella Baker, Ethel Minor, Diane Nash, June Jordan, Frances Beal, Flo Kennedy, Patricia Robinson, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Ntozake Shange, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Gina Dent, Ayoka Chenzira, and past NWSA Presidents Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Barbara Ransby. People will read, watch, assign, screen, and quote their essays, poems, plays, speeches, and short stories in an effort to celebrate their groundbreaking accomplishments and to encourage us to continue striving for the kind of excellence they’ll claim those trailblazers achieved.
But what many, if not most, people won’t tell you is that each and every one of those women unequivocally and unapologetically demanded that Palestine be free. Those who are still living do so to this very day. That is the Black radical intellectual tradition I learned. That is the Black radical intellectual tradition that made me who I am. No professional title, no amount of money, no threat of subjugation or even death could ever make me forget or be silent about that. Please join me as I spend the rest of my time giving a chronological bibliography of sorts to honor the courageous Black women and feminists who taught me.
In 1967, Minor and others published “Third World Round Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge” in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee newsletter. In 1970, the Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle East, including Beal, Kennedy, Robinson, and countless others, published a full-page advertisement in The New York Times entitled “An Appeal by Black Americans against United States Support for the Zionist Government of Israel.” That same year, Graham Du Bois published On Imperialism, Neocolonialism, and Africa, in which she also denounced Zionism. Just one year after my birth, Jordan published “Moving Towards Home” (1982), following up three years later with “The Blood Shall Be a Sign Unto You” and “Moving beyond the Enemy Israel and South Africa.” All three are fearless critiques of genocide and apartheid. In “Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography” (1983), Shange did the same. In 1989, Lorde gave the commencement address at Oberlin College. In it, she spoke Palestine and denounced the annual $3 billion in federal tax dollars earmarked for military and economic aid to Israel, $200 million of which was spent viciously fighting the uprising of Palestinian people. Nearly 15 years later, Angelou stood in solidarity with Palestinian people honoring Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old activist crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer during a nonviolent action intended to protect the home of a Palestinian family. The following year, Madikizela-Mandela reminded us, “Apartheid Israel can be defeated, just as apartheid in South Africa was defeated.” In 2006, Morrison and several others signed a letter published in The Nation as a call to resist Israel’s undeclared political aim: the liquidation of the Palestinian state. A few years later, Okazawa-Rey published “Solidarity with Palestinian Women: Notes from a Japanese Black U.S. Black Feminist.” In 2011, Davis, Dent, Chenzira, Guy-Sheftall, Ransby, and many others led by Rabab Abdulhadi published “Justice for Palestine: A Call to Action from Indigenous and Women of Color Feminists.” In 2016, Davis published Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. More recently, my first act as NWSA President was standing in front of the 2023 Membership Assembly and declaring it our collective responsibility to boldly and courageously fight Zionist colonization.
Many, if not most, of you know our most recent past President crossed the academic picket line in November 2022, violating NWSA’s 2015 commitment to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. As a result, members of the Feminists For Justice In/For Palestine Caucus (F4JP), along with other NWSA members, partners, and colleagues, held the Association to account in myriad ways, including “Call on NWSA to Reaffirm its Unwavering Commitment to Palestinian Liberation and Feminism, including BDS” and “Why We Withdrew from NWSA’s Annual Meeting: A Statement by Feminists for Justice in Palestine.” Please know I remain committed to working in collaboration with the Board, the Office, the new Advisory Committee, F4JP, other constituency groups, members, partners, and colleagues to realize the principles outlined in my recently-published strategic plan, “Reconnect, Repair, Restore: A More Thoughtful, Transparent, and Trustworthy NWSA.” That work started as soon as my presidency began this past October and will continue throughout the duration of my term. This blog and the ones to come are just one, imperfect part of that work.
While some of my research and teaching is situated in Black Transnational Feminist traditions, I do not claim to be an expert on Palestine. Rather, as an experienced Black feminist intellectual, I have what Guessous calls “a deep and abiding commitment to solidarity, the decolonization of our world, the interconnectedness of our struggles, and the liberation of all oppressed people everywhere.” Hospitals in Palestine are being bombed. Palestinian poets and journalists are being kidnapped and killed. Palestinian children are being incarcerated and starved. Palestinian students are being assassinated. And I am certain it is our collective responsibility to fight Israel’s colonial-supported genocidal war on Palestinians. As I do not ignore the cries of Palestinian prisoners, I am also not ignoring the anguish felt by Israelis who have lost their loved ones, including those whose loved ones remain captive. Guessous notes that anguish should be named, deeply felt, and honored. I could not agree more. At the same time, she astutely notes that anguish is “sadly being weaponized to justify more deaths, more losses, more state-sanctioned violence (what else is the indefinite incarceration of children and young people other than state sanctioned kidnapping?) against Palestinians.” Again, I could not agree more. This is the kind of delicate but critical and intentional sensitivity that will guide my leadership of the Association we hold dear, even when we struggle with it and each other. I am also certain of that.
Again, my certainty is indebted. Along with the fierce Black radical intellectuals I referenced above, my certainty is owed to fierce Palestinian intellectuals like Lila Abu-Lughod, Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, my girl Dana Olwan, and Abdulhadi, the esteemed Chair of F4JP. In “Moving Towards Home,” June Jordan stood against those who dare and who have the power to systemically and systematically “‘purify’ a people, those who dare ‘to exterminate’ a people, those who dare to describe human beings as ‘beasts with two legs,’ those who dare ‘to mop up,’ to ‘mow the grass’, ‘to tighten the noose,’ ‘to step up the military pressure,’ ‘to ring around’ civilian streets with tanks, those who dare to close the universities, to abolish the press, to kill the elected representatives of the people who refuse to be ‘purified’—those are the ones from whom we must redeem.” As a Black feminist, where else would I be but here, standing in solidarity with Palestinians fighting for freedom? As Abdulhadi asks in “Living Under Occupation,” “How else can justice prevail?”
1For the sake of transparency, this blog is derived from remarks I gave during a December 2023 teach-in organized by my colleague Dr. Nadia Guessous at Colorado College
My President's Blogs are meant to generate excitement about special sessions during our upcoming conference. This one focuses on our first plenary, which will examine the occupation of Palestine.