Promotional Information

Illuminates a path-breaking black radical feminist politics forged by black women leftists active in the U.S. Communist Party between its founding in 1919 and its demise in the 1950s

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
1. Black Communist Women Pioneers, 1919–1930 25
2. Searching for the Soviet Promise, Fighting for Scottsboro and Harlem's Survival, 1930–1935 58
3. Toward a Brighter Dawn: Black Women Forge the Popular Front, 1935–1940 91
4. Racing against Jim Crow, Fascism, Colonialism, and the Communist Party, 1940–1946 126
5. "We Are Sojourners for Our Rights": The Cold War, 1946–1956 160
6. Ruptures and Continuities, 1956 Onward 193
Notes 221
Bibliography 261
Index 297

About the Author

Erik S. McDuffie is Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Reviews

"Erik S. McDuffie more than introduces us to a fascinating group of black left feminists in the U.S. Communist Party. He also provides a genealogy of intersectional thinking on the workings of race, class, and gender in uncovering the predecessors of black women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s." Eileen Boris, co-editor of The Practice of U.S. Women's History: Narratives, Intersections, and Dialogues "With penetrating insight, meticulous research and beautiful writing, Erik S. McDuffie has written an exceedingly important book that simultaneously makes wholly original contributions to Women's Studies, Black Studies and the history of the U.S. Left." Gerald Horne, author, Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois "Sojourning for Freedom inserts Communism into the historiography of black women's activism. Providing a bridge between the black women's club movement and Pan-Africanism, and later civil rights and black feminist activism, Erik S. McDuffie speaks to the historical continuity of protest strategies and concerns, such as internationalism. Drawing on his thorough research and original interviews, he makes a significant contribution toward a more complex history of black struggle."--Kimberly Springer, author of Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 "...an exploration, analysis, and genealogy of black Left feminism...McDuffie does well at imagining the changes wrought in these women by years of sfudying and working in the Soviet Uniory where they were treated as equals and dignitaries, and, even more importantly, saw themselves at the center of the creation of world socialism." Women's review of Books