The Costs of Liberation

Barbara Smith, Black Feminist institution builder

As we have been talking abut the labor of printing and digital expression vis-a-vis the Adair/Nakamura essay, I thought it pertinent to point your attention to the activism around creating a retirement fund for black feminist Barbara Smith, who was a co:founder both of The Combahee River Collective AND Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

This is not a fundraising post, but a reminder that influence and even fame don’t always put food on the table and that caring for the elders who uplifted us is also feminist/activist practice. Very successful feminists like Ntozake needed a circle of care and support as they got older and unpaid /invisible labor isn’t just theory!