college teacher; writer; activist
Personal Information
Born on November 16, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Education: Mount Holyoke College, B.A., 1969; University of Pittsburgh, M.A., 1971; University of Connecticut, A.B.D., 1981.
Career
Educator. University of Massachusetts, instructor, 1976-81; Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, director and publisher, 1981-95; Barnard College, instructor, 1983; New York University, instructor, 1985; University of Minnesota, visiting professor, 1986; Hobart William Smith College, visiting professor, 1987; Mount Holyoke College, visiting professor, 1988; Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, scholar in residence, 1995-96; writer in residence at numerous colleges; freelance writer and lecturer.
Life's Work
As a black woman and a lesbian, Barbara Smith has felt first-hand the ugly sting of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Born into segregation, Smith was no stranger to these harsh realities, however she was dismayed to find that they also existed within progressive rights movements. As a feminist, she fought against sexism, yet found that white women in the movement often excluded blacks. As a black feminist, she fought against both sexism and racism, yet found that other black women in the movement shunned her because she was a lesbian. In the fight for gay and lesbian rights, she found that white gays and lesbians did not embrace the struggles of their black brothers and sisters.
Oppressed on all sides, Smith did not cower, rather she broadened the scope of her activism, becoming a champion of the need to recognize the interconnectedness of oppressions--race, sexuality, gender, and class. For Smith, the struggle for gay rights is the struggle for black rights, anti-Semitism is as vile as homophobia, and women--black, white, straight or gay--all have a stake in the women's movement. Smith's ultimate hope is that, as she told Ace Weekly, "we can recognize the humanity of people's differences, and try to treat each other more humanely."
Barbara Smith and her twin sister, Beverly, were born on November 16, 1946, in Cleveland, Ohio. The twins grew up in an extended family of women that included their mother, Hilda, their maternal grandmother, and a great aunt. Without men around, the twins learned the strengths of a woman as caretaker and provider. They also learned something much harsher--the cruelty of racism and sexism. Watching their mother and aunts ignored by shopkeepers and insulted by white strangers, the twins sensed that there was something wrong. Smith wrote in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, "The cold eyes of certain white teachers...the Black men who yelled from cars as Beverly and I stood waiting for the bus convinced me that I had done something horrible."
Raised by Strong Women
Fortunately, she lived in a house of strong women. Education and reading were not just encouraged, but expected. Their mother had been one of the first in the family to graduate from college. Though she died when the twins were just nine, her belief in education strongly influenced the twins. Smith's aunt held a job at the Cleveland Public Library and brought home bags full of books. Despite the demons of racism and sexism looming outside their door, at home Smith and her sister enjoyed a sanctuary of books, a place to let their minds grow and their dreams unfold.
Smith began to learn that there was nothing wrong with her, but that there was something very wrong with society. Watching the dramas of the Civil Rights Movement first-hand, she was moved. "I'm kind of a natural activist," she told Patricia Bell-Scott in Ms. magazine. "By the time I was eight I noticed that things were not fair." She attended her first demonstration when she was in high school and found one part of her calling--activism. The other part was writing. She told Ms., "I wanted to be a writer as soon as I found out that you could be one."
In high school, Smith pursed writing and joined the school newspaper. At age 18, she left for the prestigious campus of Mount Holyoke College and immersed herself in writing courses. As a sophomore, she took a short story course with a rising literary star who was also a white male. He criticized her work and embarrassed her tirelessly. His dismissal of her writing aspirations affected Smith so deeply that she abandoned her dream of writing and focused on literary criticism instead.
Smith was particularly interested in studying black literature, especially that of black women. Unfortunately, such a field did not yet exist. Not one to be dismayed, Smith designed her own course of study on black writers. Following graduation, she obtained a master's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971 and took her first job at the University of Massachusetts. She assumed that she would pursue the life of an academic and only write within that context. However, "the feminist movement altered my expectations about everything," she wrote in Truth.
Joined to Feminist Movement
Being a "natural activist," she was drawn to the feminist movement as a thirsty woman to a rushing stream. It gave voice to many of her own feelings about oppression. Moreover, she finally found a place for her writing in the numerous journals that had sprouted up in tandem with the movement. It was an empowering time for Smith, both as a woman and as a writer. With this empowerment also came the courage to come out as a lesbian. She wrote in Truth, "coming out in the mid-seventies was a crucial factor in finding my voice."
In 1974 Smith co-founded the Cohambee River Collective in Boston, a community-based black feminist group. One of the most important legacies of the group was that it was actively committed to not only struggling against the oppression of black women, but also against sexual, racial, and class oppression. She told Ms., "We understood that dealing with sexual politics didn't mean you weren't a race woman, and that speaking out about homophobia didn't mean that you didn't want to end poverty."
After a brief stint as a book reviewer for the National Observer, Smith made an important discovery about herself. "I decided that I would never again put myself in the position of having to make my writing conform to someone else's standards of beliefs," she wrote in Truth. She made good on that decision at a 1977 National Conference of Afro-American Writers with the presentation of her seminal work, Towards a Black Feminist Criticism. It was the first study to explore black female literature and the role of black lesbians in it, the book is considered one of the major factors in opening the field of black women's literature.
At the Kitchen Table
Realizing that mainstream publications were not very interested in what women of color had to say, Smith co-founded the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1980. Envisioned as a place for all women of color--black, Latino, Native American--to be able to publish their work, Kitchen Table, was as much a political outlet as it was a literary one. "We do not simply publish a work because it is by a woman of color, but because it consciously examines the specific situations and issues that women of color face from a positive and original perspective," Smith told Ace Weekly.
Kitchen Table Press published many important works including two publications that have contributed significantly to black feminist literary criticism: Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, edited by Smith and This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Smith worked as editor, contributor, and publisher for the press until 1995. However, Kitchen Table Press was a labor of love and activism, not one of profit. Smith struggled to get by on teaching positions, fellowships, speaking engagements, and occasional publication fees.
Even though she wrote throughout her years with Kitchen Table, she was never able to give herself to it fully. The work she had produced had been published in small journals or by independent presses and had yet to reach a wide audience. The Truth That Never Hurts, was her response to this. Featuring selected essays from 1968 to 1998, Truth presented an overview of Smith's philosophies, struggles, truths, and accomplishments.
"Reading through Smith's book is having the constant double feeling that 'things have changed' while also remaining largely unchanged," a Lambda Book Report reviewer wrote. Smith's book pointed out that, even as black and homosexual men and women assume high positions of power in government and business, others are still beaten by strangers, shunned by neighbors, and harassed by police. Smith told the Boston Phoenix,"I think there are black people like Clarence Thomas, for instance, who actually thinks he has arrived, but all he had to do is be in his car in the wrong white neighborhood to be disabused of this notion."
Just as oppression has not changed in the years since Smith began her work as an activist and author, neither has Smith's message. She continued to call for awareness that racism, sexism, and homophobia do still exist, and that they affect all people. Despite still feeling the sting of racism herself--she was once run off the road by a white driver in Watertown, Massachusetts--and homophobia--a group of black youths set her car on fire because she was a lesbian--she remained committed to her work. She told Between the Lines, "Of course I get discouraged, but I don't get despondent. I know I'm part of a long, strong struggle, and that when I'm gone there will be others to carry on." With her powerful writing, her total commitment to crushing oppression in all its forms, and her exquisite faith, Smith has created a legacy that will not soon be forgotten. Those who come after her will find that the path she has carved out is full of hope and humanity.
Awards
Outstanding Woman of Color Award, 1982; Women Educator's Curriculum Award, 1983; Stonewall Award for Service to the Lesbian and Gay Community, 1994; Radcliffe College, Bunting Institute, fellow, 1996-97; City University of New York, Humanities Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, Rockerfeller fellow, 1998-99.
Works
Selected Writings
- (Editor with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell Scott) All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies, Feminist Press, 1982.
- (Editor) Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983.
- (Editor with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt) Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, Firebrand Books, 1984.
- The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom, Rutgers University Press, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Smith, Barbara, ed. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983.
- Smith, Barbara, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender and Freedom, Rutgers University Press, 1998.
- Ace Magazine (Kentucky), September 29, 1999.
- Between the Lines (Detroit, Michigan), February 2000.
- The Boston Phoenix, February 1999.
- Lambda Book Review, January 1999.
- Ms., January/February 1995.
— Candace LaBalle
