---
title: "Black Women's Activism — AP African American Studies"
description: "Black women's activism is the long tradition of fighting racism and sexism together, from Sojourner Truth to the Combahee River Collective. Core to Topic 4.13."
canonical: "https://fiveable.me/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/black-womens-activism"
type: "key-term"
subject: "AP African American Studies"
unit: "Unit 4"
---

# Black Women's Activism — AP African American Studies

## Definition

Black women's activism refers to the centuries-long tradition of Black women organizing against both racism and sexism, from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century figures like Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman to the Black feminist movement of the 1970s that drew direct inspiration from them.

## What It Is

Black women's activism is the through-line of Black women fighting injustice on two fronts at once. Because Black women faced [racism](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4/1-the-ngritude-and-negrismo-movements/study-guide/eK9QyiGxxk1iteQm "fv-autolink") and sexism together, their activism never fit neatly into movements built around just one. Enslaved and free women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, like the preacher [Jarena Lee](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/jarena-lee "fv-autolink"), the speaker Sojourner Truth, and the liberator Harriet Tubman, resisted oppression in ways that addressed both their race and their gender (EK 4.13.A.1).

For the AP exam, the key move is seeing this as a *tradition*, not a list of separate famous women. The [Black feminist movement](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4/13-black-feminist-movement-womanism-and-intersectionality/study-guide/hflrqrysG5O7jMOP "fv-autolink") of the 1970s deliberately reached back to these earlier activists. The Combahee River Collective even named itself after Harriet Tubman's Combahee River raid, which freed over 700 enslaved people. That naming choice is the whole concept in miniature. Twentieth-century Black feminists saw themselves as continuing work that started long before them.

## Why It Matters

This term anchors **Topic 4.13 (The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality)** in [Unit 4](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4 "fv-autolink"): Movements and Debates. Learning objective **4.13.A** asks you to explain how the Black feminist movement of the twentieth century drew inspiration from earlier Black women's activism. That's a continuity argument. You need to connect the dots from Truth, Lee, and Tubman in the 1700s-1800s to the Black feminists of the 1970s, showing that the insight at the heart of Black feminism (that Black women experience racism and [sexism](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4/7-black-womens-leadership-and-grassroots-organizing-in-the-civil-rights-movement/study-guide/LIHkK6aGrz3QjBUt "fv-autolink") in unique, combined ways) was not invented in the 1970s. It was inherited.

## Connections

### [Combahee River Collective (Unit 4)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/combahee-river-collective)

This 1970s Black feminist group is the clearest proof of the tradition. They named themselves after [Harriet Tubman](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/harriet-tubman "fv-autolink")'s raid that freed over 700 people, deliberately claiming a nineteenth-century activist as their founder in spirit.

### [Sojourner Truth (Unit 4)](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/sojourner-truth)

Truth is the go-to example of early Black women's activism because she fought for [abolition](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-2/13-resistance-and-revolts-in-the-united-states/study-guide/Eb17rb9yzYu279TU "fv-autolink") and women's rights at the same time, modeling the both-at-once approach later Black feminists built on.

### Womanism and Alice Walker (Unit 4)

Walker's term '[womanist](/ap-african-american-studies/key-terms/womanist "fv-autolink")' gave a name to what Black women activists had been doing all along, a perspective rooted in Black women's specific experiences rather than borrowed from mainstream feminism.

### Intersectionality and Kimberlé Crenshaw (Unit 4)

Crenshaw's framework explains why this activism existed in the first place. Black women organized separately because racism and sexism overlap in their lives, and intersectionality is the academic name for that overlap.

## On the AP Exam

Multiple-choice questions on this term almost always test continuity. Expect stems like 'The Black feminist critique of the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power movements most directly continued which tradition from earlier Black women's activism?' or 'The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) built upon earlier Black women's activism by...' Your job is to identify the link between earlier figures (Truth, Lee, Tubman) and 1970s Black feminism. No released FRQ has used the term verbatim, but it supports exactly the kind of source-based and comparison writing the exam rewards, especially explaining how the Combahee River Collective Statement, womanism, and intersectionality each draw on this older tradition.

## Black women's activism vs The Black feminist movement

Black women's activism is the long tradition stretching back to the eighteenth century, while the Black feminist movement is the specific 1970s movement that drew inspiration from it. Think of the activism as the river and the movement as one major bend in it. On the exam, the movement is the later development; the activism of Truth, Lee, and Tubman is what it built on.

## Key Takeaways

- Black women's activism is a continuous tradition of fighting racism and sexism together, not a series of isolated individual efforts.
- Early activists like Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman resisted injustice as both enslaved and free people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
- The 1970s Black feminist movement drew direct inspiration from these earlier activists, which is exactly what LO 4.13.A asks you to explain.
- The Combahee River Collective took its name from Harriet Tubman's raid that freed over 700 enslaved people, making the link to earlier activism explicit.
- Womanism and intersectionality are later concepts that give names and frameworks to the dual struggle Black women activists had been waging for centuries.

## FAQs

### What is Black women's activism in AP African American Studies?

It's the long tradition of Black women organizing against racism and sexism at the same time, from figures like Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman in the 1700s-1800s to the Black feminist movement of the 1970s. It appears in Topic 4.13 under learning objective 4.13.A.

### Did Black feminism start in the 1970s?

No. The Black feminist movement organized formally in the 1970s, but it drew directly on centuries of earlier Black women's activism. The Combahee River Collective even named itself after Harriet Tubman's 1863 Combahee River raid to signal that connection.

### How is Black women's activism different from the Black feminist movement?

Black women's activism is the broad tradition going back to the eighteenth century, while the Black feminist movement is the specific 1970s movement inspired by it. The exam tests whether you can explain that the movement continued the tradition, not started it.

### Why did the Combahee River Collective name itself after Harriet Tubman's raid?

Tubman's Combahee River raid freed over 700 enslaved African Americans, and the 1970s collective chose that name to claim her activism as their inheritance. It's the exam's favorite example of Black feminists drawing on earlier Black women's activism.

### Who are the key early figures of Black women's activism for the AP exam?

The CED names Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century activists who resisted injustice as enslaved and free people. Know what each did and how 1970s Black feminists invoked them.

## Related Study Guides

- [4.13 The Black Feminist Movement, Womanism, and Intersectionality](/ap-african-american-studies/unit-4/13-black-feminist-movement-womanism-and-intersectionality/study-guide/hflrqrysG5O7jMOP)

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