Guy-Sheftall

BLACK!Feminist!FREE! gathers Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s most influential essays, public speeches, and interviews into a single volume, offering readers access to the depth and range of her contributions.

From early reflections on the intersections of race, gender, and class, to her contemporary analyses of sexuality, reproductive justice, and global black feminist solidarity, the collection testifies to her enduring commitment to liberation for all oppressed people.

In these writings, Guy-Sheftall brings a sharp intellect and unapologetic clarity to issues that remain urgent today: the silencing of black women in political movements, the cultural policing of black female sexuality, the failures of U.S. policy to address systemic violence, and the transformative potential of intersectional coalitions. Her voice is both scholarly and insurgent, illuminating the possibilities of a feminism rooted in black women’s experiences.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center (1981) and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College. For many years she was a visiting professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies where she taught graduate courses in Women’s Studies.

She has published a number of texts within African American and Women’s Studies which have been noted as seminal works by other scholars, including the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature, which she coedited with Roseann P. Bell and Bettye Parker Smith. Her most recent publication is an anthology co-edited with Johnnetta B. Cole, Who Should Be First: Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign. She is the past president of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017.