Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Patricia Hill Collins is an African American scholar specializing in intersecting oppressions of race, gender, and class. Collins’s educational and professional experiences make her an ideal person to write about intersectionality and Black feminist thought. Collins received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Brandeis University in 1969 and a Master of Arts degree in Teaching from Harvard University in 1970. From 1970 to 1976, Collins stepped away from higher education to work as a middle school teacher, a curriculum specialist, and a community organizer, experiences that spurred her interest in social justice. From 1976 to 1980, Collins served as Director of the Africana Center at Tufts University, where she promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion by bringing the research and culture of Black communities to campus. In 1982, while earning her PhD in Sociology from Brandeis University, Collins joined the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati, where she taught for the remainder of her career. Collins retired from her position in 2005 as the Charles Phelps Taft Distinguished Professor of Sociology. In 2009, she became the first Black woman president of the American Sociological Association (“Patricia Hill Collins.” Wikipedia).

Collins has written extensively about intersectionality and Black feminism. She published her first major article in 1986, four years before the release of Black Feminist Thought. Titled “Learning from the Outsider Within,” the article posits that Black women have special insight into social injustice because of their experiences with intersecting oppressions of race and gender. The article also describes how Black women have creatively resisted the status quo. Collins revisited both these issues in Black Feminist Thought and in subsequent publications. In addition to numerous articles, book chapters, and co-edited volumes, she has published seven single-author books about a wide range of topics, including intersectionality, activism, social justice, education, hip-hop, and Black sexual politics. Collins’s publication record extends beyond her time in academia. In 2009, for example, she published Another Kind of Public Education: Race, the Media, Schools, and Democratic Possibilities (Beacon Press), a critique of colorblind racism. In 2019, she revisited the issue of intersecting oppressions in Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (Duke University Press). She also has a forthcoming book titled Lethal Intersections: Race, Gender, and Violence, scheduled for release in 2024.

In addition to her scholarly work, Collins is a lifelong social activist, a topic she emphasizes in Black Feminist Thought. In 2022, for example, she spoke about Black Lives Matter, social justice, and the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in an interview for the Brazilian magazine Gênero e Número (da Silva, Vitoria Regia, and Maria Martha Bruno. “Patricia Hill Collins Desafia Interseccionalidade em Novo Libro [Partricia Hill Collins Challenges Intersectionality in New Book].” Gênero e Número, 20 Nov. 2022). During a 2018 keynote lecture at the University of Cambridge, Collins claimed that freeing Black people from oppression was the central motivation of her work (“Critical Conversations: Intersectionality and Sociology.” University of Cambridge). In 2016, after Hillary Clinton’s failed bid for the US presidency, Collins reiterated her commitment to social justice in an article in The Guardian, vowing to “keep up the fight” (“The Panel: What Does the US Election Result Say About Misogyny?” The Guardian, 9 Nov. 2016). Similarly, in her 2012 commencement address at Arcadia University, when she received an honorary doctorate, Collins discussed how she came to use her voice to engender social change (“Dr. Patricia Hill Collins Delivers 2012 Graduate Commencement Address.” YouTube, uploaded by Arcadia University, 31 May 2012). Collins’s activism, alongside her publications and educational background, have made her a leading authority on Black feminist thought.