Naomi’s Reviews > Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical > Status Update

Intro. “This book is the first examination of her work that bridges the more mature antiracist movement with the nascent struggle against sexism. Kimberly Springer, Benita Roth, and Stephen Ward, among other scholars, have rescued black feminist organizing in the 1960s and 1970s from historical obscurity to highlight autonomous black feminist organizations.”

🤔 Flo was judged for being too “showy” or performative BUT honestly it’s smart to have an iconic “look” or easily recognizable “look” if you’re gonna cut through the noise! Marketing is very important in America because well…capitalism and so if you’re gonna fight the game you gotta play it.

🤔 when activists are taught in school we only learn 1 part of their activism we don’t learn about the different intersections they often advocate for. “People can only be 1 thing it seems being multifaceted is unheard of and too complicated to understand”

Intro “…they critiqued the multiple and simul-
taneous forms that oppression took in their lives and fought against it in a wide range of groups and movements throughout the postwar period.”

Intro “Contrary to historical representations and popular belief, black feminists, as members and founders of mostly white feminist organizations and as founders of an independent black feminist movement, attempted to shift the mainstream women’s movement away from a single focus on gender-­based oppression toward an agenda more cognizant of the intersections of race and gender.”

Intro “Kennedy’s story challenges the
conventional history of the predominantly white liberal and radical feminist struggles during the 1960s and 1970s through the particular contributions of black feminist politics.“

⭐️Intro “Kennedy expected ‘politics
to be fun,’ so she sang loudly, laughed frequently, and recruited and sustained others with her excitement for challenging one’s own fears by con-
fronting one’s enemies.”

Intro “Kennedy’s street theater demonstrates that her savvy performances were strategically deployed to attract media attention to often-­ ignored issues
and were also a way to make fighting for justice irresistibly pleasurable for would-­ be activists and those already hooked.”

💭ephemera: things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time. Or items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity
“Junk journaling” or “memory box”

Intro “Once the pages of Kennedy’s unpublished book manuscript ‘The Politics of Oppression’ were placed in the correct order and the chapters were organized in the way she had outlined, the direct line of influence between feminisms and Black Power became clear.”