Third World Women’s Alliance

Despite the frequent assertion that women’s liberation was a movement of white middle-class women, women of color articulated their own brand of feminism. In 1968, sncc ’ Black Women’s Liberation Committee was formed. Led by Frances Beal, it broadened its scope and renamed itself the Third World Women’s Alliance ( twwa ) in 1969. The twwa insisted that for women of color and poor women, there could be no liberation without confronting issues of race and class. It also questioned the feminist orthodoxy that a natural sisterhood united all women, pointing out that some forms of women’s liberation would merely give white women the opportunity to participate in racial privilege along with white men. Other important organizations of women of color were founded in the 1970s, including the National Black Feminist Organization and the Combahee River Collective.