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Addicted to pursuit of freedom, Black feminists draw from past to empower new generations to live tomorrow now

Régine Jean-Charles, Director of Africana Studies, Dean's Professor of Culture and Social Justice, and Professor of Africana Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, speaks during The Annual Bell Hooks Symposium - Black Feminism, Black Freedom event held on East Village 17th floor. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Demita Frazier, a lifelong Black feminist, social justice activist and writer, was 6 years old when her mother sat her down and said, “You are going to hear from people that they think that they’re superior to you because they’re white. It’s a lie.”

“And it was emphasized to me over and over in time as I was growing up,” said Frazier, who graduated from Northeastern University with a Juris Doctor degree.

In 1974, together with sisters Barbara and Beverly Smith, Frazier co-founded the Combahee River Collective in Boston, a Black feminist and lesbian organization resisting racial, sexual, heterosexual and class oppression. The statement they wrote for Combahee River Collective became a key document in developing contemporary Black feminism.

Continue reading at Northeastern Global News.

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