Angela Davis Quotes

One of the greatest gifts of Black feminism to ourselves has been to make it a little easier simply to be Black and female.

Child care, abortion and women in the labor force. White women must get in line behind us. The issue is survival.

We at the Women's March tried intersectionality, and we were the group that said we're going to do it right, and we're going to defy our women-of-color elders who told us, 'We did this with the white woman before, and it doesn't work.'

Black women have historically had the most to lose and have therefore been the fiercest fighters for justice.

Being born gay, black, and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay black female is.

The right wing in this country is waging a war against women, and let me be very clear, it is not a war that we are going to allow them to win.

Our society really needs to take a better look at what we're selling, because I think women being empowered will be as beneficial to men as it is to us.

We have to stop making excuses. One of the things that I'm careful to show is the horrendous effects of institutional and structural racism, but in the end, you can't wait for white man or a Black man to come riding in on a white horse to save you. We have to save ourselves, and that's the lesson of "The African Americans."

My hope is that feminist, racial justice, reproductive rights and LGBT movements build a coalition that centers on the lives of women who lead intersectional lives and too often fall in between the cracks of these narrow mission statements.

Feminism as a theoretical enterprise is approached differently by Black women depending on where we are. There are more reformist Black women who tend to use the phrase "Black feminism".

Obviously the most oppressed of any oppressed group will be its women

the point of feminism ... is to win women a wider range of experience. Feminism remains a pretty simple concept, despite repeated - and enormously effective - efforts to dress it up in greasepaint and turn its proponents into gargoyles.

I stand here as a black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the input of black feminists and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism and homophobia are inseparable. . . .

I think it's important for us to recognize that although historically black communities have been very progressive with respect to issues of race and with respect to struggles for racial equality, that does not necessarily translate into progressive positions on gender issues, progressive positions on issues of sexuality and in the latter 1990s we have to recognize the intersectionality, the interconnectedness of all of these institutions and attitudes.

Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously.

There is no issue that is not a women's issue.

Women should not be suppressed because they are women, because they have children and because of men. Then I am a feminist. But when it comes to the African concept, for the moment, I say 'feminist plus'. We have so many other problems.

The IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] has been accused of pushing women to the front. This is not true. Rather, the women have not been kept in back, and so they have naturally moved to the front.

Racism will disappear when it's no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it'll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.

I certainly embrace all the movement that's going on these days about equality for women and equal rights. In general, I would apply that to all nationalities and all races. I think we do need more awareness, generosity, and compassion than we have right now. But in terms of feminism, I embrace it wholeheartedly. Not in a kind of militant way, but I've always known that it matters.

Feminism isn't whatever you want it to be.

If we are going to bring about change, then men, for goodness sake, stand up and stand for the right. And I say, ‘power to the women.

The negro cannot win the respect of the white people of the south or the peoples of the world if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his personal and immediate comfort and safety.

Unfortunately, violence against women is not the only injustice women face globally; it is one of the many inequalities that impede the full development of socially excluded women globally.

We as women know that there are no disembodied processes; that all history originates in human flesh; that all oppression is inflicted by the body of one against the body of another; that all social change is built on the bone and muscle, and out of the flesh and blood, of human creators.