“I really appreciate most of what you said. After the first Black male speaker talked for about thirty minutes, Garza responded: Taylor, in her introduction, makes the case for the importance of the CRC statement and its enduring influence: ‘it is difficult to quantify the enormity of the political contribution made by the women of the Combahee River Collective because so much of their analysis is taken for granted in feminist politics today’ (4).Īlicia Garza highlights the enduring relevance of the CRC statement when she recalls going to a meeting of a Black left coalition in 2007 and there were only a handful of women present in a meeting of about 150 people. The book is composed of an introduction by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the original CRC statement, three separate, one-to-one, interviews that Taylor conducted with key figures in the CRC (Demita Frazier and sisters Barbara and Beverley Smith), an interview with #BlackLivesMatter organiser, Alicia Garza, and a commentary by radical Black academic, Barbara Ransby.Īlthough the CRC statement is now more than 40 years old, the various contributors testify to its contemporary relevance in various ways. It is, however, the centre around which everything else in How We Get Free orbits. The book contains the original 1977 statement, but the statement itself is a relatively small portion of the book. The CRC statement made a case for emancipatory Black feminist theory and practice.

The CRC were a group of Black socialist feminists who were engaged in Black, women, gay and socialist struggles in the US in the 1970s. How We Get Free was published to mark the fortieth anniversary of the influential Combahee River Collective (CRC) statement.

How we get free keeanga yamahtta taylor