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1526: First Documentation of Afro-Descendent women in the Americas

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1526: First Documentation of Afro-Descendent women in the Americas

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1600: Isabel de Olvera is the first documented free Black woman in America

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1600: Isabel de Olvera is the first documented free Black woman in America

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1641: Massachusetts legalizes slavery with "condition of mother" rule

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1641: Massachusetts legalizes slavery with "condition of mother" rule

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The "condition of the mother" rule originated for the most part because white enslavers were raping the Black women they enslaved, and wanted to enslave their children to make profit. White enslavers created a myth that considered Black women as "un-rape-able" in order to justify their sexual violence against the women they enslaved.

The forced labor and abuse that Black women were subjected to under slavery contradicted white patriarchy's assertions about women. To justify this contradiction, white enslavers deemed Black women as not "real" women. This was at the same time as the cult of true womanhood, which wrote Black women out of womanhood altogether.

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1656: Elizabeth Key Sues for Her Freedom and Wins

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1656: Elizabeth Key Sues for Her Freedom and Wins

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In 1656, Elizabeth Key sued her enslaver for freedom of herself and her infant son. She was the first enslaved woman in America to sue for her freedom and win.

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1828: Sojourner Truth sues for the freedom of her five-year-old son

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1828: Sojourner Truth sues for the freedom of her five-year-old son

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In 1828, Sojourner Truth sued the man who was enslaving her five-year-old son Peter. She was the first Black woman to win a legal victory against a white man in America.

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1831: Maria Stewart is first Black woman in America to publish a political manifesto

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1831: Maria Stewart is first Black woman in America to publish a political manifesto

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Maria Stewart's manifesto was incredibly influential. It was the first political manifesto published by a Black woman in America. Stewart used the bible to condemn the evils of slavery and white supremacy. She wrote that it was God's will for Black people to resist slavery, using force if necessary. This was a really important statement.

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1839: Mississippi grants white women certain property rights 

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1839: Mississippi grants white women certain property rights 

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At this time, white women were advocating for the right to own property in America. In the South, this meant enslaving people. In 1839, Mississippi passed a law granting the right for white women to “own” enslaved people as property. This is an example of how white women have engaged in white supremacy and racial violence under the guise of “women’s rights.”

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1850: Harriet Tubman begins her first trip to help enslaved people escape slavery

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1850: Harriet Tubman begins her first trip to help enslaved people escape slavery

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Over 10 years, Tubman completed 19 trips helping people escape slavery (around 300 people). During the civil war, she was the first woman in America to lead a military expedition.

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1851: Sojourner Truth delivers historic speech at Woman's Rights Convention

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1851: Sojourner Truth delivers historic speech at Woman's Rights Convention

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At the Women's Rights Convention in Akron Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered a historic and iconic speech calling for recognition of Black women's humanity and rights.

Throughout her life, Truth recognized the importance of intersectionality and criticized the 14th Amendment's lack of voting rights and citizenship for Black women.

Though the speech is famous for the "Ain't I A Woman" quote, that probably isn't actually what Truth said. That quote comes from a later "translation" by a white man who wanted to portray Truth's way of speaking as a racial caricature of a formerly enslaved person to make her more palatable to white audiences.

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1866: The Equal Rights Association is founded

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1866: The Equal Rights Association is founded

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In 1866, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B Anthony founded the Equal Rights Association. Frederick Douglass was likely the most feminist famous man of the 19th century, proudly stating that he was "A Women's Rights Man." Originally a group of abolitionists, the ERA's goal was equal rights for Black people and for women.

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1870: Equal Rights Association Dissolves

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1870: Equal Rights Association Dissolves

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After the Equal Rights Association voted to support the 14th and 15th amendments, a group of white women led by Stanton and Anthony disbanded the organization. They joined white supremacist Democrats, using racist rhetoric to argue for women’s suffrage. Because of their internalized racism, they were upset that Black men could vote and they couldn’t.

To be clear, Douglass supported women's suffrage- but was declaring a state of emergency for Black people in the US. Black men’s suffrage was an urgent matter of survival in the face of the unimaginable violence and racial terrorism Black families were facing in the post-slavery era.

After Black people gained suffrage (temporarily), Democrats strategized to support women's voting rights to maintain political power and white supremacy. Stanton and Anthony's suffrage movement was funded by white supremacist Democrats a tool for maintaining anti-Black violence and white dominance.

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1892: Anna Julia Cooper publishes A Voice From the South

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1892: Anna Julia Cooper publishes A Voice From the South

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In 1892, Anna Julia Cooper published A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. In these essays, she argued that Black women were uniquely positioned to observe and critique American society because they were both Black and female. This is considered one of the foundational texts of intersectionality theory.

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1913: Ida B Wells founds the Alpha Suffrage Club

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1913: Ida B Wells founds the Alpha Suffrage Club

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The white historical canon often does not acknowledge Ida B. Wells' role in the suffragist movement. In 1913, Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Club to encourage Black women to become involved in politics. It became one of the most influential women's rights organizations, as well as running campaigns to register Black voters in Illinois.

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1913: Ida B. Wells Moves to Front of NAWSA March

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1913: Ida B. Wells Moves to Front of NAWSA March

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In 1913, Ida B Wells and the Alpha Suffrage Club joined the Women's Suffrage Procession. The white suffragists running the parade thought that having Black women in the march would lose their racist Southern white supporters, and forced the Alpha Suffrage Club to march in the back. Wells said "Either I march with you or not at all," and ran to the front of the procession once it started.

This is an example of how white women systematically excluded Black women from the suffragist movement, despite the movement being built by Black people.

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White women gained the right to vote, while most Black men and women were unable to vote in America. This is an example of how the white feminist movement has bought into white supremacy for short-term power, leaving BIPOC women behind. Let it not be forgotten that many Black suffragists fought for the passage of the 19th amendment.

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1950s: Push for women's working leaves out Black women

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1950s: Push for women's working leaves out Black women

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After WWII, the focus of the mainstream feminist movement became allowing women to work outside the home. However, Black women had always been working outside their homes- historically doing white women's domestic work. The "women belong in the home" rhetoric of this time did not apply to Black women, because Black women have never been allowed to be in their homes. While white women were portrayed on television as homemakers, Black women were portrayed with harmful "mammy" stereotypes.

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1950-60s: Black female activists play essential role in civil rights movement

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1950-60s: Black female activists play essential role in civil rights movement

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Black women including Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Mamie Till-Mobley, and Fannie Lou-Hamer played instrumental roles in the success of the civil rights movement.

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1973: The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) is founded

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1973: The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO) is founded

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The NBFO met for the first time in 1973, chaired by Margaret Sloan. The organizations goal was to advance and advocate for Black feminism and Black women. However, the organization dissolved later due to differing approaches to Black feminist liberation between members.

The NBFO signifies a rising focus on Black Feminism and Black feminist thought in the 1970s.

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1970-80s: Rise of "Third World Feminism"

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1970-80s: Rise of "Third World Feminism"

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“Third World Feminism” called for anti-racist, anti-imperialist feminism. It called out how the mainstream second wave feminist movement was excluding BIPOC and marginalized women. It was founded by women most marginalized by patriarchy.

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The Combahee River Collective was a Boston-based group of queer Black women that branched off the NBFO.

The CRC emphasized that lived experience was a valid basis from which to analyze oppression. Because the CRC was founded by Black women with so many marginalized identities, its politics were radically inclusive and grounded in liberation for all. The CRC expressed the idea that if poor Black women were free, then everyone would be free.

The CRC rejected respectability politics because it left out Black lesbian women. They also rejected lesbian separatism because it denied liberation to many Black people. They argued that patriarchy, not men, was the problem, and that they needed solidarity with Black men in order to get liberation. As a group of queer women, this was a really impactful stance for them to take. The CRC also emphasized that the most profound politics come from working from one's own identity.

The CRC is one of the most influential organizations of the second wave. Its radical and intersectional politics impact our work in the movement today.

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1981: bell hooks publishes "Ain't I a Woman?" book

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1981: bell hooks publishes "Ain't I a Woman?" book

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"Aint I a Woman?" was one of the many iconic works of bell hooks, one of the most influential figures of the modern feminist movement. This book was about how patriarchy and white supremacy are interlocking and oppress Black women. hooks examined the racism of the mainstream white feminist movement.

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1982: Clark Atlanta University creates Africana Women's Studies program

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1982: Clark Atlanta University creates Africana Women's Studies program

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During this time, there was a movement for Black studies and women's studies programs in universities. However, these women's studies programs rarely centered the experiences of Black women. Many Black female academics worked hard to carve out spaces for research on Black women's studies in their institutions. Today, CAU is one of the only universities with a degree in Black women's studies.

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1983: Alice Walker publishes first book on womanism

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1983: Alice Walker publishes first book on womanism

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Alice Walker coined the term "womanism" in 1979, and then wrote her first book on Womanism in 1983 (In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose). Womanism is a movement/framework/epistemology that centers the experiences of Black women. It emphasizes the importance of community, Black female solidarity, relationships, and intersectionality. It provides a new framework for gender liberation outside of a form of mainstream feminism that colludes with white supremacy.

Walker wrote that “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.” Essentially, feminism is a specific type of womanism. Feminism advocates for gender equality (historically in a way that excluded BIPOC women and fed into white supremacy), while womanism is far more intersectional, inclusive, and solidarity-oriented.

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1989: Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw coins term Intersectionality

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1989: Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw coins term Intersectionality

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In her 1989 work, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality. Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how systems of oppression uniquely impact people who hold multiple marginalized identities.

She explains that Black women do not face racism and sexism as separate oppressions, but as a combined force that oppresses them in unique ways- like an intersection at a crossroads. White supremacy and patriarchy are interlocking and part of the same system of oppression. Crenshaw focused on examples including sexual violence, police violence, and job discrimination. Black women are most marginalized by sexism, so anti-patriarchal movements must be centered on the experiences of Black women.

Intersectionality later became one of the defining features of third-wave feminism, and today fourth-wave feminism.

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When Clarence Thomas was nominated to be Supreme Court justice, Anita Hill testified against him that he had sexually harassed her.

Instead of believing Hill, politicians and media flipped the narrative and attacked her, blaming and discrediting her. They used racist stereotypes to dismiss her, depicting her as a jezebel, hypersexual, and undesirable.

Anita Hill had done everything possible to be seen as a "respectable" Black woman in politics, but still faced sexist and racist persecution for speaking out. This trial led many feminists to re-evaluate "postfeminism."

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1992: Rebecca Walker Writes "I am the Third Wave"

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1992: Rebecca Walker Writes "I am the Third Wave"

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After the Anita Hill trial, Rebecca Walker (Alice Walker's daughter) published an essay in Ms. Magazine calling for new anger and energy in the feminist movement. At the time, postfeminism was a highly theoretical liberal academic discourse that negated experience as a way of knowing. Walker outlined a more radical definition of mainstream feminism and called out the failures of post-feminism. This is where the term "Third Wave" feminism came from.

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1999: Joan Morgan coins the term "Hip-Hop Feminism"

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1999: Joan Morgan coins the term "Hip-Hop Feminism"

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In her 1999 book "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: a Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks it Down," Joan Morgan coined the term "Hip-Hop Feminism." Morgan writes that feminism needs to be "brave enough to fuck with the grays." In an era of pushback against respectability politics, Hip-Hop feminism aimed to take down barriers to being considered a feminist. It emphasized that all Black girls matter, regardless of respectability politics. It was a space for nuance and contradictions, and it was grounded in the lived experiences of Black women.

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2006: Tarana Burke founds MeToo Movement

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2006: Tarana Burke founds MeToo Movement

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In 2006, Tarana Burke founded the me too organization, dedicated to ending sexual violence and protecting Black women. In 2017, the #MeToo movement gained viral attention on social media. Ending sexual violence against Black women and girls continues to be the central goal of Burke's work.

The MeToo movement has been one of the defining moments in the so-called "fourth wave" of the feminist movement. Much like the other "waves" the fourth wave has been criticized for focusing on the experiences of white upper-middle-class women, despite relying on Black women for labor in its origins.

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2013: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi found Black Lives Matter

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2013: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi found Black Lives Matter

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In 2013, three Black woman organizers: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi founded the Black Lives Matter Network. It was founded in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who murdered Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter mobilizes against state-sanctioned violence (including police violence against Black women) and affirms Black humanity, centering intersectionality.

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First passed in California in 2019, The CROWN Act makes discrimination based on hair style and hair texture illegal. It is part of a larger Black feminist movement for natural hair acceptance.

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2020: Mikki Kendall publishes "Hood Feminism"

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2020: Mikki Kendall publishes "Hood Feminism"

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Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall focused on the ways in which race and class divide women, calling out the hypocrisy of white feminism. The theory of Hood Feminism is centered on the experiences of working-class Black women and calls for true solidarity between all women.

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In March 2020, Breonna Taylor was murdered in her sleep by police officers who broke into her home. The police murders of Black women including Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, Kayla Moore, and Sandra Bland have also gained attention, but there are thousands more Black women murdered by police whose names we don't know.

Black women face state-sanctioned violence and are murdered by police, but mainstream media and politics often leave them out of conversations about police violence.

#SayHerName is a movement to bring awareness to police violence against Black women and end all forms of anti-Black violence. The hashtag #SayHerName was created by the African American Policy forum.

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2020: Megan Thee Stallion and #ProtectBlackWomen

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2020: Megan Thee Stallion and #ProtectBlackWomen

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In 2020, the cases of violence against Megan Thee Stallion and several other famous Black women prompted the creation of the #ProtectBlackWomen hashtag. This social media campaign aims to bring attention to the systemic and interpersonal violence Black women face.