Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara SmithAlethia Jones, Virginia Eubanks Reveals a remarkable woman s life and her contributions to social justice movements related to Civil Rights, feminism, lesbian and gay liberation, anti-racism, and Black feminism. As an organizer, writer, publisher, scholar-activist, and elected official, Barbara Smith has played key roles in multiple social justice movements, including Civil Rights, feminism, lesbian and gay liberation, anti-racism, and Black feminism. Her four decades of grassroots activism forged collaborations that introduced the idea that oppression must be fought on a variety of fronts simultaneously, including gender, race, class, and sexuality. By combining hard-to-find historical documents with new unpublished interviews with fellow activists, this book uncovers the deep roots of today s identity politics and intersectionality and serves as an essential primer for practicing solidarity and resistance. Barbara Smith is a creator of modern feminism as a writer, organizer, editor, publisher, and scholar. Now she has added to her decades as an activist outside the system by becoming an elected official who truly listens, represents, and creates bridges to a common good. She has shown us that democracy is a seed that can only be planted where we are. Gloria Steinem Barbara Smith is one of the grand pioneering and prophetic voices of our time. Her truth still hurts and heals! Cornel West Ain t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around is not a memoir, a biography, nor a reader. It is a reflection and a conversation. It is also a montage of forty years of documents, interviews, and articles that provide useful lessons for social justice work. This book is a tour de force that documents the life s work of Barbara Smith and the freedom struggles she shaped. Duchess Harris, author of Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Obama |
Contents
1 Chronicling an Activist Life
| 1 |
Early Roots of Activism
| 13 |
3 Building Black Feminism
| 41 |
4 Building Black Womens Studies
| 97 |
5 Building Kitchen Table Press
| 139 |
6 Building MultiIssue Movements
| 173 |
7 Building Progressive Urban Politics
| 213 |
Legacies and Futures of a Black Feminist Life
| 253 |
Editorial Note
| 293 |
How We Built This Book
| 295 |
| 297 | |
Interviews Commissioned for This Volume
| 307 |
Interviewer and Contributor Biographies
| 309 |
| 313 | |
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