Founded in 1975, the non-partisan National Alliance of Black Feminists (NABF) played a critical role in the Black women's liberation movement and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. The Chicago-based organization's Black humanist feminism powered a singular dedication to building coalitions while influencing its historic set of comprehensive political, economic, and cultural demands.

Ileana Nachescu places the NABF's history as the bridge between Black women's social activism in the 1970s and the intellectual activism of the 1980s. Her account details the NABF's work and how it reflected the group's strong humanist belief in the transformation of all human beings. Nachescu also shows that the NABF's post-Eighties erasure from movement histories is consistent with how many white feminists marginalized women of color and rejected their leadership. From there, Nachescu examines Black lesbians' vibrant support of the NABF and shows how respectability politics pressured the group to support its lesbian membership in private but maintain a public silence on the issue.

A rare in-depth look at an overlooked organization, The National Alliance of Black Feminists tells an untold story of Black women's liberation in the Midwest.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Growing Dynamo: Black Women's Liberation

Chapter 2. The Theory and Practice of Black Humanist Feminism

Chapter 3. 202 South State Street

Chapter 4. Mapping the Black Feminist Movement

Chapter 5. The NABF, Coalition Politics, and Colorblind Feminism in the Late 1970s

Chapter 6. Between Public Silence and Private Support: Black Lesbians and NABF's Politics of Sexuality

Chapter 7. Beyond the Equal Rights Amendment: Black Feminism in the Aftermath of Women's Liberation

Conclusion

Black Woman's Bill of Rights

Notes

Bibliography

Index

|Ileana Nachescu is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University.