Black Feminist Thought

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. Patricia Hill Collins' Black Feminist Thought has become a landmark book and the first to skilfully synthesize the many strands of Black feminist thought into a powerful, coherent argument for social justice. Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without, providing a rich interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music, and oral history, the result is a brilliantly crafted and revolutionary book whose message is as important today as upon its first publication. This Routledge Classics edition, which includes a new Preface by the author, replaces the Thirtieth Anniversary edition.

Patricia Hill Collins is Distinguished University Professor of Sociology Emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA, and Charles Phelps Taft Professor Emerita of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati, USA. She is the author of over ten books, including her award-winning classics Black Feminist Thought and Black Sexual Politics. Professor Collins has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Brazil. She was the 2009 President of the American Sociological Association (ASA), the first African-American woman elected to this position in the organization's 104-year history. Professor Collins has won numerous professional awards, among them the William E.B. DuBois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award from ASA (2017), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Sociologists (2018), the Alumni Award from Brandeis University (2021), the Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service for Sociology (2021), and the Berggruen Prize in Philosophy and Culture (2023).

Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the 2026 Routledge Classics Edition Acknowledgements Part 1: The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought 1. The Politics of Black Feminist Thought 2. Distinguishing Features of Black Feminist Thought Part 2: Core Themes in Black Feminist Thought 3. Work, Family, and Black Women's Oppression 4. Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images 5. The Power of Self-Definition 6. The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood 7. Black Women's Love Relationships 8. Black Women and Motherhood 9. Rethinking Black Women's Activism Part 3: Black Feminism, Knowledge, and Power 10. U.S. Black Feminism in a Transnational Context 11. Black Feminist Epistemology 12. Toward a Politics of Empowerment. Glossary Bibliography Index