Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith – Life, Activism, and Enduring Legacy

Barbara Smith (born 1946) is a groundbreaking American Black feminist, lesbian activist, scholar, and publisher. Her work in co-founding the Combahee River Collective, pioneering Black feminist criticism, and establishing Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press helped shape intersectional feminist thought.

Introduction

Barbara Smith is one of the most influential voices in Black feminist activism in the United States. Over a career spanning decades, she has challenged simplistic or single-axis models of liberation, insisting that race, gender, sexuality, and class are inseparable in struggles for justice. Her writing, organizing, and publishing efforts have nurtured generations of scholars, activists, and writers of color.

Though many may not know her by name, her influence is woven into feminist theory, LGBTQ+ organizing, and movements for racial and economic justice. Understanding Barbara Smith means encountering how personal identity, social structure, and collective resistance intertwine.

Early Life and Family

Barbara Smith was born in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio. Many sources list her birthday as November 16 rather than December 16. She has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a feminist activist and scholar.

Barbara and Beverly were born prematurely, and their early childhood involved health struggles.

From early on, Barbara internalized her family’s reverence for learning. Education and intellectual inquiry would become central pillars of her life.

Education and Early Development

Barbara Smith attended Mount Holyoke College, graduating in 1969 with a degree in sociology and English. She then pursued a Master’s degree in Literature at the University of Pittsburgh, completing it in 1971.

During her graduate studies and early teaching years, she became active with feminist, civil rights, and lesbian feminist circles.

Her early activism included participation in civil rights protests while still in high school, including marches, boycotts, and organizing.

Activism, Feminist Theory, and Organizing

Combahee River Collective

One of Barbara Smith’s most pivotal contributions was co-founding the Combahee River Collective in the 1970s, along with a group of radical Black feminists.

The name references a military operation led by Harriet Tubman during the Civil War, symbolic of resistance and liberation. Combahee River Collective Statement (1977), a foundational text in Black feminist theory. The statement articulated how race, gender, sexuality, and class coalesce to produce unique forms of oppression, especially for Black women and lesbians.

Within that framework, the Collective insisted that Black women must define their own paths to liberation rather than being subsumed under movements that center white women or Black men.

Although the Collective dissolved in the early 1980s, its ideas endured and have influenced subsequent waves of feminism and intersectional scholarship.

Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press

Barbara Smith also made waves in the publishing world. In 1980, she co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press along with Audre Lorde and others.

Through Kitchen Table, Smith oversaw publication of key anthologies and works such as Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, This Bridge Called My Back, and I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities.

Literary & Theoretical Contributions

Barbara Smith’s essay “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism” (1977) is often cited as the first explicit statement of Black feminist literary criticism.

She also edited seminal collections such as Conditions 5: The Black Women’s Issue, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave, and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.

Later Public Service and Local Governance

Beyond her work in feminist theory and publishing, Barbara Smith also served in public office. She was elected to the Albany, New York Common Council (city council) in 2005, representing Ward 4, and was reelected in 2009.

Smith also remained an active voice in public discourse—speaking, writing, and participating in movements around LGBTQ+ rights, resisting Islamophobia, and advocating for solidarity-based care.

Personality, Philosophy, and Influence

Barbara Smith is often described as rigorous, uncompromising in her commitments, and deeply relational. Her lens is shaped by lived experience as a Black lesbian woman, and she centers that standpoint rather than viewing it as “add-on.”

Her intellectual stance insists that no single axis of oppression can be understood in isolation from all the others—what today is often called “intersectionality.” She was an early articulator of what would become a key framework in feminist, queer, and critical race thought.

Despite her stature, she is also known for personal modesty and for organizing structures that resist hierarchy, reflecting her political commitments to collective leadership and shared accountability.

Legacy and Ongoing Relevance

Barbara Smith’s influence spans many domains:

• In feminist theory and criticism, her insistence on centering marginalized voices challenged white-centered feminism and reshaped academic discourse.

• Her concept of identity politics paved the way for intersectional analysis—including the work of scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw.

• Through publishing, she created infrastructure supporting women of color writers, altering what gets published and read.

• Many contemporary movements for racial, gender, and queer justice build upon frameworks she helped develop.

• Her public service and activism model how theory, community work, and governance can interlock.

• Her writings continue to be taught, cited, and adapted in women's studies, LGBTQ studies, Black studies, and more.

In 2005, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, reflecting broad recognition of her commitment to justice.

Her collected essays and reflections are compiled in The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom (1998).

Even today, her work remains relevant: questions of racial justice, LGBTQ+ inclusion, class inequality, and the politics of care continue to be front and center.

Selected Quotes by Barbara Smith

Here are a few quotations that reflect her convictions:

• “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

• “My feminism was not born in a vacuum — it was born at the intersections of race, class, sexuality.”

• “We have to move beyond single-issue thinking, because that is what keeps oppression alive.”

• “To be silent in the face of oppression is to be complicit.”

• “Community care is not sentimental—it’s essential.”

(Note: Some quotes are paraphrased or drawn from various interviews and writings.)

Lessons from Barbara Smith

1. Center the marginalized — True justice demands that those who live with intersectional challenges lead the conversations.

2. Theory and praxis must align — Intellectual work divorced from movement is incomplete; activism without reflection is fragile.

3. Build alternative institutions — When existing structures exclude you, create new ones (as she did with Kitchen Table).

4. Collective leadership matters — Rejecting rigid hierarchies strengthens movements and prevents burnout.

5. Speak truth even when unpopular — Being brave and honest about difficult tensions is vital for long-term solidarity.

Conclusion

Barbara Smith’s life and work exemplify the power of combining thought, activism, and institution-building. Her insistence that liberation must be intersectional—rooted in real lives, relationships, and institutions—has shaped how many understand justice today.

Her voice continues to guide and challenge us. As we face persistent inequalities, Smith’s legacy offers both a map and an invitation: to think boldly, organize inclusively, and act in solidarity.