Barbara Smith

Born on Nov. 16, 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, Barbara Smith is a Black lesbian feminist and socialist. Since the early 1970s, Smith has been active as an author, scholar, activist, and leader of the Black feminist thought. In 1974, she co-founded the Combahee River Collective, a Black lesbian feminist socialist organization that argued that both feminism led by white women and the Civil Rights movement were not addressing the needs of Black women, particularly Black lesbian women. 

Raised by her grandmother and aunt after her mother died when she was nine years old, Smith’s family stressed the importance of learning and education throughout her life. After high school, Smith went to undergraduate school at Mount Holyoke College, graduating in 1969 and going on to get her master’s degree in 1971 at the University of Pittsburgh. Smith then went to University of Connecticut to get her doctorate, but did not complete her dissertation. 

In 1973, Smith taught her first class at Emerson College, which covered Black women’s literature. 1974 was when Smith co-founded the Combahee River Collective in Boston, Massachusetts, and the group would be most known for its Combahee River Collective Statement, which was written by Smith, her twin sister Beverly Smith, and Demita Frazier and explored the intersection of racism, sexism, misogyny, heterosexism, and more, arguing in favor of Black women’s liberation and ability to be open and unapologetic about their LGBTQ+ identities in the midst of their social justice work. 

With the Collective disbanding in 1980, in the same year Smith went on to co-found the first U.S. book publisher for women of color by women of color, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. Smith not only helped to make a space for Black women in the press, but particularly broke ground by creating a place for Black lesbian women and their voices. 

Since her first class in 1973, Smith has been a visiting professor, writer in residence, freelance writer, and lecturer at various universities, colleges, and research institutions throughout the years. In 2005, she ran for and was elected to the Albany, New York Common Council, and while on the city council focused on youth violence prevention. That same year, she was also nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and has received many other honors throughout the years, including the Stonewall Award for Service to the Lesbian and Gay Community in 1994. 

Smith continues her work today as scholar and activist, teaching at colleges and universities, writing essays, reviews, articles, short stories, and literary criticisms, of which have been published in The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions, and The Nation.  

The Combahee River Collective Statement, authored by Smith, Beverly, and Frazier, can be read here. Smith also has a book, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom and has edited many others through Kitchen Table, including Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.