blakeR

. . . At the turn of the century, Black women initiated social reform in Black communities when government fell short, and they created the means to educate their own. They went toe to toe with White feminists, defended themselves and the race, and did not hesitate to chastise the men who sought to keep them from doing so. In the process, Black women helped launch and sustain the modern civil rights movement. They also exposed the deep core of feminism, which went to the heart of women's rights: over their souls, their bodies, their families, their labor. And in the course of all that, Black women may be said to have provided the means to free everyone.

The Black woman was able to accomplish so much in those years because she had an unshakable conviction: The progress of neither race nor womanhood could proceed without her. And she understood the relationship between the two.

. . . I feel safe in saying that virtually all people -- even people of exceptional intelligence -- who merely read this book once or twice at an ordinary pace will miss many of its most important points. This book, therefore, is not a book to be read; it is a book to be studied with the same care that one would use in studying, for example, a textbook of engineering.