Author, activist and scholar Barbara Smith will speak Tuesday, May 3 at 6 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
Smith will discuss “Black Feminism: My Next Chapter.” The talk, part of the Presidential Forum on Diversity series, is free and open to the public.
Smith was among the first to define an African-American women’s literary tradition and to build black women’s studies and black feminism in the United States. She has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s.
She has edited three major collections about black women: Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (with Lorraine Bethel; All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell Scott); and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology.
She is the co-author with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism. A collection of her essays, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom, were published by Rutgers University Press in 1998.
Smith was co-founder and publisher of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U. S. publisher for women of color. A resident of Albany, she is serving her second term as a member of the Common Council.
Previous speakers in the series have included poet Maya Angelou, journalist Soledad O'Brien, law professor Lani Guinier, Broadway star Anthony Rapp, actress Marlee Matlin and activist Morris Dees.