How We Get Free Quotes

“We reject pedestals, queenhood, and walking ten paces behind. To be recognized as human, levelly human, is enough.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“Always ally yourself with those on the bottom, on the margins, and at the periphery of the centers of power. And in doing so, you will land yourself at the very center of some of the most important struggles of our society and our history.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but because of our need as human persons for autonomy.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“And the way that Toni—I mean, people didn’t mess with Toni—you didn’t want Toni Morrison coming for you, because [she] knows how to use her words! She can etch steel with those words.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“I'm not nostalgic. I'm looking back to mine the past for what it can help us with right now, and for what it can help us pass on and create. - Demita Frazier”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“But we had made the decision—when we talked about who qualified as a woman of color, we came up with, after much discussion, that our definition of women of color was any woman who identified with the indigenous people of her respective nation or land. One of the reasons we put it that way is that there are people of European heritage in Argentina, for example, Jewish women. Are they Latinas or not? Well, I think we could argue that indeed they are, because of where they were born, and the language they speak, and the culture that they’re a part of. So, we made that decision that we were not looking for photographs of people. We just wanted to know if you identified with the indigenous people of your respective nation or country.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“I mean, to me, all the explanation that's needed is in the Combahee River Collective statement, about what it is we stand for, and who we think we should be working with. But as I have explained, the reason we used the term "identity politics" is that we were asserting at a time when Black women had no voice. -Barbara Smith”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

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― Michelle Obama, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“There were white people who actually stepped away from their white skin privilege at a critical time in US history, because they could see as plain as the nose on their face that enslaving other human beings was wrong. And they decided, like, 'Okay, yeah, I guess I’m white, but I guess I love humanity more.”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective

“Although we were not doing political work as a group, individuals continued their involvement in lesbian politics, sterilization abuse and abortion rights work, Third World Women’s International Women’s Day activities, and support activity for the trials of Dr. Kenneth Edelin, Joan Little, and Inéz García. During our first summer when membership had dropped off considerably, those of us remaining devoted serious discussion to the possibility of opening a refuge for battered women in a Black community. (There was no refuge in Boston at that time.)”
― Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective