![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.processhistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Carmichael-Murphy-Header.jpg?resize=702%2C395\")
<\/p>\nMap showing the Combahee River in South Carolina where in 1863 Harriet Tubman led the Combahee Ferry Raid that freed more than 700 people from slavery. The Combahee River Collective chose to name themselves in honor of Tubman\u2019s political act. Courtesy War Department, Office of the Chief of Engineers, Sept. 25, 1866, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This piece is a response to our call for submissions, Celebrating Combahee at Fifty: Black Feminism, Socialism, Race, and Sexuality.<\/a>\u00a0For our submission guidelines, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n The use of the wave metaphor for describing feminism has been criticized for suggesting unified progression across the Women\u2019s Movement and fixing activism to chronological moments in time.[1]<\/sup><\/a> The wave metaphor disregards the shifting nature of collective needs across different contexts and the different approaches taken to organize in response. As such, it is not well suited to evoke the complex, layered, and fluid nature of Black feminism and intersectionality. Perhaps, then, a river metaphor might provide a more fitting representation, as it emphasizes the continuous flow and movement of ideas, struggles, and non-linear progress.<\/p>\n Fifty years ago, the Combahee River Collective (CRC) emerged as a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization that centered and aimed to redress the oppression that Black women experienced. It took its name from Harriet Tubman\u2019s 1863 Combahee Ferry Raid, which liberated over 750 enslaved people in South Carolina.[2]<\/sup><\/a> Active between 1974 and 1980, the CRC\u2019s radical leftist stance was concerned with dismantling racism, sexism, capitalism, imperialism, and heteropatriarchy as mutually sustaining forms of oppression. This commitment traces back to the civil rights, Black power, and women\u2019s movements, highlighting the Collective\u2019s deep historical and political lineage. Collectively, these movements not only shaped the CRC\u2019s philosophy but also its founding members.<\/p>\n The CRC\u2019s founder-members are sisters Barbara and Beverly Smith, and Demita Frazier. The sisters had participated in antiwar demonstrations as teenagers and picketed with the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), where they met prominent activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Margaret Sloan-Hunter.[3]<\/sup><\/a> Margaret Sloan-Hunter was the president of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), which called out mainstream white feminism\u2019s unwillingness to address the racism that Black women experienced.[4]<\/sup><\/a> At a 1973 NBFO conference in New York, the Smith sisters were exposed to political discussion about Black women\u2019s experiences. Returning to Boston after the conference, they began organizing with Black women in the area and established the Boston chapter of NBFO; it was during this time that they connected with Demita Frazier. Eventually, the trio separated from the NBFO to establish an organization that more committedly responded to Black lesbians\u2019 needs by explicitly opposing homophobia and rejecting the stance of lesbian separatism. Identifying themselves as \u201cBlack feminists and Lesbians,\u201d they argued that lesbian separatism \u201ccompletely denies any but the sexual sources of women\u2019s oppression, negating the facts of class and race.\u201d They wanted a more \u201cviable political analysis or strategy\u201d that would not leave out \u201cfar too much and far too many people.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n The Collective called for a deeper analysis that recognized the importance of class and sexuality as other oppressive structures alongside race. In pursuit of a more inclusive and radical organization, Barbara, Beverly, and Demita formalized their standpoint and principles in the 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement<\/em>. It remains a formative text in Black feminist thought, addressing the intersection of racism and sexism as mutually sustaining oppressions that shape Black women\u2019s material conditions.[6]<\/sup><\/a> The trio drew on Black socialism, Black communism, and Black Marxism to consider the economic, social, political, and historical circumstances that influence Black women\u2019s lives. By interrogating the multifaceted nature of Black women\u2019s identities, the Combahee River Collective<\/em> Statement <\/em>offered a tangible framework for many Black women to understand their shared experiences and struggles. The statement is recognized as an early articulation of the underlying principles of \u201cintersectionality\u201d and is considered the first document that described \u201cidentity politics.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> As such, it laid the foundation for many Black feminist theoretical developments and strategies for resistance.<\/p>\n Though the term \u2018identity politics\u2019 has since become subject to the separatism the CRC was fighting against, the Collective was in fact deeply committed to organizing around collective needs, recognizing the multiplicitous nature of identity and the interconnectedness of oppression to resist exclusionary mainstream feminist politics. Members recognized the personal as political and were committed to organizing around that understanding. This approach was not about focusing on individual aspects of identity, but instead organizing across identities and finding salience across differences. The Collective worked in coalition with Third World women, Black men, lesbians, and other marginalized groups.<\/p>\n As part of its organizing, the CRC often focused on feminist reading and writing. In her 1977 essay, \u201cToward a Black Feminist Criticism,\u201d Barbara called for an analysis of Black women\u2019s experiences through their history, literature, and culture, challenging the exclusionary practices of white feminist publishing.[8]<\/sup><\/a> Several years later, she edited Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology<\/em> (1983), a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist essays. Many of the CRC\u2019s members identified as Black feminists and lesbians, and some are considered to be key figures across the development of Black women\u2019s studies. Those who played a role in the Collective\u2019s organizing, including Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, Chirlane McCray, Gloria Akasha Hull, and Margo Okazawa-Rey, continue to advocate for Women\u2019s studies, the Black arts movement, and Black queer people\u2019s rights today. Their contributions to Black feminist thought are documented in works like Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought <\/em>(1995) by Beverly Guy-Sheftall and its companion text Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought <\/em>(2021) by Briona Simone Jones.[9]<\/sup><\/a> Together, these three anthologies span fifty years of Black feminist and lesbian thought to interrogate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Barbara has reflected on her early commitment to build Black women\u2019s studies and Black feminism, though she admits that they were not necessarily confluent.[10]<\/sup><\/a> Indeed, it is possible that Black feminism\u2019s travel into the university served as a point of contradiction for the CRC as a collective\u2014in How We Get Free, <\/em>Demita highlights the academy as a site where Black feminism has \u201cbeen both strengthened theoretically and co-opted.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n The CRC\u2019s influence is also evident in contemporary analyses of intersectionality, particularly in how Black feminist scholars like Moya Bailey, Jennifer Nash, and Marquis Bey extend their analyses to new contexts. Each offers criticism on how the figure of the \u201cBlack woman\u201d is constructed through caricatures in both the academy and popular culture. Moya Bailey developed the concept of \u201cmisogynoir\u201d to critique discriminatory portrayals of Black women online and in media.[12]<\/sup><\/a> Jennifer Nash extends this critique to the notion of \u201cintersectionality\u201d itself, arguing that the overdetermination of the Black woman as the beholder of intersectional feminism is limiting for the future of Black feminism.[13]<\/sup><\/a> Marquis Bey returns to abolition, calling for a departure from gender and a greater interrogation of categories of identity themselves.[14]<\/sup><\/a> These approaches extend the CRC\u2019s intersectional analysis to name the ways that images and an essentialization of the category of \u201cBlack women,\u201d both within and outside the university, sustain the mutually constitutive conditions that shape the material conditions of people who are categorized by race, gender, and sexuality.<\/p>\n Just as a river shapes and is shaped by its surroundings, the CRC\u2019s legacy continues to inform and inspire contemporary Black feminism and wider liberation movements. Reflecting on the Collective\u2019s lifecourse in 2021, Demita Frazier explained: \u201cThe Combahee lived its life and had a natural beginning and end. That\u2019s why I said there was no big blow up, no big fight, no internal schism. People\u2019s politics just diverged.\u201d[15]<\/sup><\/a> Like the water cycle, revisiting the CRC as a vital source of Black feminist thought underscores the necessity for addressing the overlapping nature of categories of identity (including race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, and nationality)\u2014not only through theoretical exploration but also through tangible political action. By honoring and building upon the CRC\u2019s radical work, we can ensure that the river of Black feminist thought remains a powerful and unifying force for the liberation of all oppressed peoples.<\/p>\n Parise Carmichael-Murphy\u00a0is a Lecturer in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and a member of the Feminist Review Editorial Collective. She is passionate about celebrating\u00a0Black\u00a0feminisms and is currently guest editing a special issue on \u2018Black British Feminisms and Performance\u2019 with Lorna French for <\/em>Feral Feminisms journal.<\/em><\/p>\n [1]<\/sup><\/a> Constance Grady, \u201cThe Waves of Feminism, and Why People Keep Fighting over Them, Explained,\u201d Vox,<\/em> July 20, 2018, https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/3\/20\/16955588\/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth.<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup><\/a> Alexis Clark, \u201cAfter the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid,\u201d History.com, <\/em>Aug. 29, 2023, https:\/\/www.history.com\/news\/harriet-tubman-combahee-ferry-raid-civil-war.<\/p>\n [3]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cCongress of Racial Equality (CORE),\u201d The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, https:\/\/kinginstitute.stanford.edu\/congress-racial-equality-core.<\/p>\n [4]<\/sup><\/a> Kayomi Wada, \u201cNational Black Feminist Organization (1973\u20131976),\u201d BlackPast,<\/em> Dec. 29, 2008, https:\/\/www.blackpast.org\/african-american-history\/national-black-feminist-organization-1973-1976\/.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Combahee River Collective, \u201cThe Combahee River Collective Statement.\u201d BlackPast,<\/em> 1977, https:\/\/www.blackpast.org\/african-american-history\/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977\/.<\/p>\n [6]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n [7]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cWhat Is Intersectionality?,\u201d Blackfeminisms.com, <\/em>2016, https:\/\/blackfeminisms.com\/what-is-intersectionality\/.<\/p>\n [8]<\/sup><\/a> Barbara Smith, \u201cToward a Black Feminist Criticism,\u201d Radical Teacher, <\/em>7 (March, 1978), 20\u201327, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20709102.<\/p>\n [9]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cBeverly Guy-Shefthall,\u201d National Women\u2019s History Museum, <\/em>https:\/\/www.womenshistory.org\/about-us\/our-people\/beverly-guy-sheftall; Emerald Rutledge, \u201cBlack Lesbian Thought: An Interview with Briona Simone Jones,\u201d Black Perspectives,<\/em> April 19, 2021, https:\/\/www.aaihs.org\/black-lesbian-thought-an-interview-with-briona-simone-jones\/.<\/p>\n [10]<\/sup><\/a> Janell Hobson, \u201cThe Ms.<\/em> Q&A: Barbara Smith on Finding Hope in the Struggle,\u201d Ms.,<\/em> Nov. 17, 2017, https:\/\/msmagazine.com\/2017\/11\/17\/ms-qa-barbara-smith-finding-hope-struggle\/.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, ed., How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective<\/em> (2017).<\/p>\n [12]<\/sup><\/a> \u201c3 Questions: Moya Bailey on the Intersection of Racism and Sexism,\u201d MIT News, <\/em>Jan. 11, 2021, https:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2021\/3-questions-moya-bailey-intersection-racism-sexism-0111.<\/p>\n [13]<\/sup><\/a> Matt Hartman, \u201cJennifer Nash: Unsettling the Romances of Black Feminism,\u201d Duke Today<\/em>, Oct. 16, 2020, https:\/\/today.duke.edu\/2020\/10\/jennifer-nash-unsettling-romances-black-feminism.<\/p>\n [14]<\/sup><\/a> Marquis Bey, Black Trans Feminism<\/em> (2021).<\/p>\n
![Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThis piece is a response to our call for submissions, Celebrating Combahee at Fifty: Black Feminism, Socialism, Race, and Sexuality.<\/a>\u00a0For our submission guidelines, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n\nThe use of the wave metaphor for describing feminism has been criticized for suggesting unified progression across the Women\u2019s Movement and fixing activism to chronological moments in time.[1]<\/sup><\/a> The wave metaphor disregards the shifting nature of collective needs across different contexts and the different approaches taken to organize in response. As such, it is not well suited to evoke the complex, layered, and fluid nature of Black feminism and intersectionality. Perhaps, then, a river metaphor might provide a more fitting representation, as it emphasizes the continuous flow and movement of ideas, struggles, and non-linear progress.<\/p>\nFifty years ago, the Combahee River Collective (CRC) emerged as a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization that centered and aimed to redress the oppression that Black women experienced. It took its name from Harriet Tubman\u2019s 1863 Combahee Ferry Raid, which liberated over 750 enslaved people in South Carolina.[2]<\/sup><\/a> Active between 1974 and 1980, the CRC\u2019s radical leftist stance was concerned with dismantling racism, sexism, capitalism, imperialism, and heteropatriarchy as mutually sustaining forms of oppression. This commitment traces back to the civil rights, Black power, and women\u2019s movements, highlighting the Collective\u2019s deep historical and political lineage. Collectively, these movements not only shaped the CRC\u2019s philosophy but also its founding members.<\/p>\nThe CRC\u2019s founder-members are sisters Barbara and Beverly Smith, and Demita Frazier. The sisters had participated in antiwar demonstrations as teenagers and picketed with the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), where they met prominent activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Margaret Sloan-Hunter.[3]<\/sup><\/a> Margaret Sloan-Hunter was the president of the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), which called out mainstream white feminism\u2019s unwillingness to address the racism that Black women experienced.[4]<\/sup><\/a> At a 1973 NBFO conference in New York, the Smith sisters were exposed to political discussion about Black women\u2019s experiences. Returning to Boston after the conference, they began organizing with Black women in the area and established the Boston chapter of NBFO; it was during this time that they connected with Demita Frazier. Eventually, the trio separated from the NBFO to establish an organization that more committedly responded to Black lesbians\u2019 needs by explicitly opposing homophobia and rejecting the stance of lesbian separatism. Identifying themselves as \u201cBlack feminists and Lesbians,\u201d they argued that lesbian separatism \u201ccompletely denies any but the sexual sources of women\u2019s oppression, negating the facts of class and race.\u201d They wanted a more \u201cviable political analysis or strategy\u201d that would not leave out \u201cfar too much and far too many people.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nThe Collective called for a deeper analysis that recognized the importance of class and sexuality as other oppressive structures alongside race. In pursuit of a more inclusive and radical organization, Barbara, Beverly, and Demita formalized their standpoint and principles in the 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement<\/em>. It remains a formative text in Black feminist thought, addressing the intersection of racism and sexism as mutually sustaining oppressions that shape Black women\u2019s material conditions.[6]<\/sup><\/a> The trio drew on Black socialism, Black communism, and Black Marxism to consider the economic, social, political, and historical circumstances that influence Black women\u2019s lives. By interrogating the multifaceted nature of Black women\u2019s identities, the Combahee River Collective<\/em> Statement <\/em>offered a tangible framework for many Black women to understand their shared experiences and struggles. The statement is recognized as an early articulation of the underlying principles of \u201cintersectionality\u201d and is considered the first document that described \u201cidentity politics.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> As such, it laid the foundation for many Black feminist theoretical developments and strategies for resistance.<\/p>\nThough the term \u2018identity politics\u2019 has since become subject to the separatism the CRC was fighting against, the Collective was in fact deeply committed to organizing around collective needs, recognizing the multiplicitous nature of identity and the interconnectedness of oppression to resist exclusionary mainstream feminist politics. Members recognized the personal as political and were committed to organizing around that understanding. This approach was not about focusing on individual aspects of identity, but instead organizing across identities and finding salience across differences. The Collective worked in coalition with Third World women, Black men, lesbians, and other marginalized groups.<\/p>\nAs part of its organizing, the CRC often focused on feminist reading and writing. In her 1977 essay, \u201cToward a Black Feminist Criticism,\u201d Barbara called for an analysis of Black women\u2019s experiences through their history, literature, and culture, challenging the exclusionary practices of white feminist publishing.[8]<\/sup><\/a> Several years later, she edited Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology<\/em> (1983), a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist essays. Many of the CRC\u2019s members identified as Black feminists and lesbians, and some are considered to be key figures across the development of Black women\u2019s studies. Those who played a role in the Collective\u2019s organizing, including Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, Chirlane McCray, Gloria Akasha Hull, and Margo Okazawa-Rey, continue to advocate for Women\u2019s studies, the Black arts movement, and Black queer people\u2019s rights today. Their contributions to Black feminist thought are documented in works like Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought <\/em>(1995) by Beverly Guy-Sheftall and its companion text Mouths of Rain: An Anthology of Black Lesbian Thought <\/em>(2021) by Briona Simone Jones.[9]<\/sup><\/a> Together, these three anthologies span fifty years of Black feminist and lesbian thought to interrogate the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Barbara has reflected on her early commitment to build Black women\u2019s studies and Black feminism, though she admits that they were not necessarily confluent.[10]<\/sup><\/a> Indeed, it is possible that Black feminism\u2019s travel into the university served as a point of contradiction for the CRC as a collective\u2014in How We Get Free, <\/em>Demita highlights the academy as a site where Black feminism has \u201cbeen both strengthened theoretically and co-opted.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\nThe CRC\u2019s influence is also evident in contemporary analyses of intersectionality, particularly in how Black feminist scholars like Moya Bailey, Jennifer Nash, and Marquis Bey extend their analyses to new contexts. Each offers criticism on how the figure of the \u201cBlack woman\u201d is constructed through caricatures in both the academy and popular culture. Moya Bailey developed the concept of \u201cmisogynoir\u201d to critique discriminatory portrayals of Black women online and in media.[12]<\/sup><\/a> Jennifer Nash extends this critique to the notion of \u201cintersectionality\u201d itself, arguing that the overdetermination of the Black woman as the beholder of intersectional feminism is limiting for the future of Black feminism.[13]<\/sup><\/a> Marquis Bey returns to abolition, calling for a departure from gender and a greater interrogation of categories of identity themselves.[14]<\/sup><\/a> These approaches extend the CRC\u2019s intersectional analysis to name the ways that images and an essentialization of the category of \u201cBlack women,\u201d both within and outside the university, sustain the mutually constitutive conditions that shape the material conditions of people who are categorized by race, gender, and sexuality.<\/p>\nJust as a river shapes and is shaped by its surroundings, the CRC\u2019s legacy continues to inform and inspire contemporary Black feminism and wider liberation movements. Reflecting on the Collective\u2019s lifecourse in 2021, Demita Frazier explained: \u201cThe Combahee lived its life and had a natural beginning and end. That\u2019s why I said there was no big blow up, no big fight, no internal schism. People\u2019s politics just diverged.\u201d[15]<\/sup><\/a> Like the water cycle, revisiting the CRC as a vital source of Black feminist thought underscores the necessity for addressing the overlapping nature of categories of identity (including race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, and nationality)\u2014not only through theoretical exploration but also through tangible political action. By honoring and building upon the CRC\u2019s radical work, we can ensure that the river of Black feminist thought remains a powerful and unifying force for the liberation of all oppressed peoples.<\/p>\nParise Carmichael-Murphy\u00a0is a Lecturer in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, and a member of the Feminist Review Editorial Collective. She is passionate about celebrating\u00a0Black\u00a0feminisms and is currently guest editing a special issue on \u2018Black British Feminisms and Performance\u2019 with Lorna French for <\/em>Feral Feminisms journal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n[1]<\/sup><\/a> Constance Grady, \u201cThe Waves of Feminism, and Why People Keep Fighting over Them, Explained,\u201d Vox,<\/em> July 20, 2018, https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/3\/20\/16955588\/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth.<\/p>\n[2]<\/sup><\/a> Alexis Clark, \u201cAfter the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman Led a Brazen Civil War Raid,\u201d History.com, <\/em>Aug. 29, 2023, https:\/\/www.history.com\/news\/harriet-tubman-combahee-ferry-raid-civil-war.<\/p>\n[3]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cCongress of Racial Equality (CORE),\u201d The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, https:\/\/kinginstitute.stanford.edu\/congress-racial-equality-core.<\/p>\n[4]<\/sup><\/a> Kayomi Wada, \u201cNational Black Feminist Organization (1973\u20131976),\u201d BlackPast,<\/em> Dec. 29, 2008, https:\/\/www.blackpast.org\/african-american-history\/national-black-feminist-organization-1973-1976\/.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Combahee River Collective, \u201cThe Combahee River Collective Statement.\u201d BlackPast,<\/em> 1977, https:\/\/www.blackpast.org\/african-american-history\/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977\/.<\/p>\n[6]<\/sup><\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n[7]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cWhat Is Intersectionality?,\u201d Blackfeminisms.com, <\/em>2016, https:\/\/blackfeminisms.com\/what-is-intersectionality\/.<\/p>\n[8]<\/sup><\/a> Barbara Smith, \u201cToward a Black Feminist Criticism,\u201d Radical Teacher, <\/em>7 (March, 1978), 20\u201327, https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/20709102.<\/p>\n[9]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cBeverly Guy-Shefthall,\u201d National Women\u2019s History Museum, <\/em>https:\/\/www.womenshistory.org\/about-us\/our-people\/beverly-guy-sheftall; Emerald Rutledge, \u201cBlack Lesbian Thought: An Interview with Briona Simone Jones,\u201d Black Perspectives,<\/em> April 19, 2021, https:\/\/www.aaihs.org\/black-lesbian-thought-an-interview-with-briona-simone-jones\/.<\/p>\n[10]<\/sup><\/a> Janell Hobson, \u201cThe Ms.<\/em> Q&A: Barbara Smith on Finding Hope in the Struggle,\u201d Ms.,<\/em> Nov. 17, 2017, https:\/\/msmagazine.com\/2017\/11\/17\/ms-qa-barbara-smith-finding-hope-struggle\/.<\/p>\n[11]<\/a> Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, ed., How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective<\/em> (2017).<\/p>\n[12]<\/sup><\/a> \u201c3 Questions: Moya Bailey on the Intersection of Racism and Sexism,\u201d MIT News, <\/em>Jan. 11, 2021, https:\/\/news.mit.edu\/2021\/3-questions-moya-bailey-intersection-racism-sexism-0111.<\/p>\n[13]<\/sup><\/a> Matt Hartman, \u201cJennifer Nash: Unsettling the Romances of Black Feminism,\u201d Duke Today<\/em>, Oct. 16, 2020, https:\/\/today.duke.edu\/2020\/10\/jennifer-nash-unsettling-romances-black-feminism.<\/p>\n[14]<\/sup><\/a> Marquis Bey, Black Trans Feminism<\/em> (2021).<\/p>\n[15]<\/sup><\/a> Marian Jones, \u201c\u2018If Black Women Were Free\u2019: An Oral History of the Combahee River Collective,\u201d Nation,<\/em> Oct. 29, 2021, https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/society\/combahee-river-collective-oral-history\/.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Map showing the Combahee River in South Carolina where in 1863 Harriet Tubman led the Combahee Ferry Raid that freed more than 700 people from slavery. The Combahee River Collective chose to name themselves in honor of Tubman\u2019s political act. Courtesy War Department, Office of the Chief of Engineers, Sept. 25, 1866, via Wikimedia Commons. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[15990,38616,38615,4810,1003],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-75073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-collective","tag-combahee","tag-fifty","tag-river","tag-years"],"yoast_head":"\nFifty Years of Combahee River Collective - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=75073\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fifty Years of Combahee River Collective - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Map showing the Combahee River in South Carolina where in 1863 Harriet Tubman led the Combahee Ferry Raid that freed more than 700 people from slavery. The Combahee River Collective chose to name themselves in honor of Tubman\u2019s political act. Courtesy War Department, Office of the Chief of Engineers, Sept. 25, 1866, via Wikimedia Commons. 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