Harvard's Schlesinger Library Acquires Papers of Black Lesbian Feminist Pioneer Barbara Smith

The Schlesinger Library at Harvard Radcliffe Institute has acquired the papers of Black lesbian feminist writer, activist, and publisher Barbara Smith, according to an announcement from the institute.

Smith is widely recognized as a pioneering voice in Black feminism and Black LGBTQ+ political thought, and her work helped shape modern conversations about race, gender, sexuality, and intersectionality.

"Barbara Smith is a remarkably influential American scholar and activist—one who deserves far greater recognition than she has ever received," Harvard Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin said in the announcement. She said the collection will be made available to students, researchers, and the public with support from the Mellon Foundation.

Smith participated in the civil rights movement as a high school student, later helped teach some of the earliest academic courses on Black women's literature, and became a key architect of Black feminist scholarship and Black women's studies, according to the institute.

She also helped challenge homophobia and rigid gender roles within both the women's and Black liberation movements. Smith was a founding member of the Combahee River Collective, the influential Black feminist lesbian organization whose 1977 statement became a cornerstone of intersectional feminist theory.

Her activism and writing helped lay foundations for the modern Black LGBTQ+ rights movement and the Black LGBTQ+ cultural renaissance of the 1980s and 1990s, the institute said.

The newly acquired papers will be housed at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge.