In this comprehensive history, Ashley D. Farmer examines black
women’s political, social, and cultural engagement with Black Power
ideals and organizations. Complicating the assumption that sexism
relegated black women to the margins of the movement, Farmer
demonstrates how female activists fought for more inclusive
understandings of Black Power and social justice by developing new
ideas about black womanhood. This compelling book shows how the new
tropes of womanhood that they created—the "Militant Black
Domestic," the "Revolutionary Black Woman," and the
"Third World Woman," for instance—spurred debate among
activists over the importance of women and gender to Black Power
organizing, causing many of the era’s organizations and leaders to
critique patriarchy and support gender equality.
Making use of a vast and untapped array of black women’s artwork,
political cartoons, manifestos, and political essays that they
produced as members of groups such as the Black Panther Party and the
Congress of African People, Farmer reveals how black women activists
reimagined black womanhood, challenged sexism, and redefined the
meaning of race, gender, and identity in American life.