Prepare for a visit to AAMLO with these special topic resource guides.
This resource guide is intended to help users locate holdings at AAMLO related to Black Feminism and the liberation of Black women.
● Selected Library Material at AAMLO
● Selected Archival Collections at AAMLO
Other collections may contain relevant materials. Please contact AAMLO (aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org) with any questions or to schedule an appointment to view materials in person.
Selected Library Materials
Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
Women's Rights Emerges Within the Anti-slavery Movement, 1830-1870 edited by Kathryn Kish Sklar
The Regulations of Robbers: Legal Fictions of Slavery and Resistance edited by Christina Accomando
African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
Lifting as They Climb by Elizabeth Lindsay Davis
Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell by Beverly Washington Jones
The Veiled Garvey: the Life & Times of Amy Jacques Garvey by Ula Y. Taylor
Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: a Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby
Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism by Erik S. McDuffie
Want to Start a Revolution?: Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle edited by Dayo F. Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard
We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 : a Sourcebook edited by Catherine Morris
Living for the Revolution: Black Feminist Organizations, 1968-1980 by Kimberly Springer
Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: the Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph
Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Davis
Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks
Sister Outside: Essays and Speeches and Zami, a New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde
Sister Love: the Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989 edited by Julie R. Enszer
Power Hungry: Women of the Black Panther Party and Freedom Summer and Their Fight to Feed a Movement by Suzanne Cope
De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland by Judy Juanita
The Combahee River Collective Statement: Black Feminist Organizing in the Seventies and Eighties by the Combahee River Collective
Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality by Jennifer C. Nash
Digital Black Feminism by Catherine Knight Steele
Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility edited by Johanna Burton, Reina Gossett, and Eric A. Stanley
Them Goon Rules: Fugitive Essays on Radical Black Feminism by Marquis Bey
Selected Archival Collections
Phyllis Wheatley Club of the East Bay Records. Named after African American poet Phillis Wheatley (c.1754 – 1784), the Phyllis Wheatley Club of the East Bay was founded in 1914 by Mrs. Fred Williams and Hettie B. Tilghman. The original intent of the club was to cultivate young black women and encourage their contributions to the community. Over the next two decades, it quickly became an influential charitable organization focused on fundraising efforts that supported local organizations, community services, and programs in the East Bay.
Colored Women's Clubs Associations Collection. The records included within this collection trace the histories of three different associations of colored women's clubs: the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs; the California State Association of Colored Women's Clubs; and the National Council of Negro Women. Records within this collection document the history, organization, and activities of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, the California State Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and the National Council of Negro Women. These associations were all united by a common purpose of improving the welfare of African American women and of providing service to the African American community. [View online]
Berkeley Civic Study Club Records. The Berkeley Civic Study Club was founded in 1924 by a group of African American women wanting to study civic issues and participate in bettering their community. According to club publications, the purpose of the Berkeley Civic Study Club was "[...]to unite its members in non-partisan, educational, and civic work; to present information, and offer for free discussion, civic and legislative problems."
Black Women Stirring the Waters Collection. Black Women Stirring the Waters is a Bay Area Black women’s discussion group founded in 1984. The group was conceived by Clara Stanton Jones, the first African American to head the public library of a major city and the first African American president of the American Library Association, and Aileen Clarke Hernandez, activist, and former President of the National Organization for Women (NOW). In 1997, forty-four members of the group published a collection of autobiographical memoirs discussing ways they have dealt with obstacles and have grown in their lives and careers. The Black Women Stirring the Waters Collection at AAMLO includes contributing authors’ manuscripts and correspondence, history and records of the group, and audio recordings. The collection documents the creation of the organization’s 1997 publication, Black Women Stirring the Waters.
Stephens Family Papers. After receiving a Bachelor of Science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1924, Virginia Stephens Coker (1903-1986) became the first African American woman to receive a law degree from University of California Berkeley's Boalt School of Law in 1929. While at Berkeley, Virginia also helped Ida L. Jackson found Rho Chapter in 1921 and Alpha Nu Omega, a graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. These were among the first Greek sororities for African American women west of the Mississippi. After working in private practice for ten years, Virginia received an appointment as Attorney in the State Office of the Legislature Council in Sacramento in May, 1939. [View online]
Sylvia Anna Magruder Papers. Sylvia Anna Magruder (née Duncan) served various civic and religious organizations in the San Francisco area, including the Y' Women of the San Francisco Buchanan St. YWCA and Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She also worked for African American civil rights and advocated the hiring of the city’s first African American railway conductor, police officer, and social worker.
Frances Albrier Papers. Social activist Frances Albrier (1898-1987) was a 20th-century community activist and labor organizer who led several important campaigns for equality in Northern California. In 1938, she became the first woman elected to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. The following year she became the first woman to run for the Berkeley City Council, led the Citizen’s Employment Council’s “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign, and organized the East Bay Women's Welfare Club, a women’s group which advocated for the hiring of black teachers in the Berkeley Unified School District. During the 1940s, she continued to be active in a number of women's, civil rights, and union organizations while serving as a first aid instructor in the American Red Cross. She was the first African American woman welder in Kaiser's Richmond shipyards during World War II and was active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the Brotherhood for Sleeping Car Porters, the National Council for Negro Women (NCNW), and a host of Bay Area civic organizations including the Northern California Caucus on the Black Aged. The Frances Albrier papers include correspondence, legal and financial records, awards, photographs, records of civic organizations and women’s clubs, and assorted printed material documenting Albrier life and participation in various civic organizations and women’s clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ruth Beckford Papers. Dancer, teacher, and activist Ruth Beckford (1925-2019) founded and directed the first recreational modern dance program in the country teaching dance classes for the Oakland Recreation Department at DeFremery Recreation Center beginning in 1947. She would lead the dance program for twenty years while also performing with Anna Halprin and Welland Lathrop dance companies. Beckford toured with her dance company (Ruth Beckford African-Haitian Dance Company), taught classes at her dance studio, and directed the Oakland Recreation Department’s Modern Dance Program until she retired from performing dance. In addition to her accomplishments in dance and theater, she is credited with co-founding the Black Panther Free Breakfast Program at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland, California. Included in the files are documents related to Black Women Organized for Political Action and the East Bay Black Women’s Political Action Committee. The papers also include an oral history interview with W.A. Deane, of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.), discussing the political work of Black Cross Nurses and Amy Jacques Garvey. Oral history interviews with Ruth Beckford are available in the African American Museum & Library at Oakland Oral History Collection. [View online]
Barbara Lee Papers. In the late 1960s, Barbara Jean Lee moved to Oakland, California and enrolled at Mills College. There she became politically active joining the Black Students’ Association eventually serving as the group’s president. As a student, she invited Shirley Chisholm to speak on campus during her historic 1972 campaign for president and she campaigned to have Chisolm on the ballot in Alameda County and served as a campaign delegate for Northern California at the Democratic National Convention. During this time, she also volunteered at the Black Panther Party’s Community Learning Center and worked as a volunteer for Bobby Seale’s 1973 campaign for the mayor of Oakland, California. In 1974, she applied for the Cal in the Capitol Program upon the advice of Shirley Chisholm and was assigned to the office of Congressman Ronald Dellums representing California’s 7th District. Lee was first elected to public office in 1990 when she ran for California State Assembly representing the 13th District. In 1998, Lee was elected to the United State Congress representing California’s 9th District (now District 13) following the retirement of Ronald V. Dellums. In Congress, she has advocated for legislation related to education, LGBTQ+ issues, universal healthcare, and as an advocate for women’s health authored the California Violence Against Women Act and served on the California Commission on the Status of Women.
Savannah A. Van Dyke Bello Papers. Beginning in the Civil Rights Movement during the early 1960's, Bello became politically involved and was active with local school board elections and city council meetings. In 1963, together with Charlesetta Braggs-Ford, she founded the Richmond chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to address discriminatory practices in local housing and employment. As a representative of Richmond CORE, Bello participated in training institutes, educational leagues and programs for the purpose of helping the public become better informed on the problem of de facto segregation in the Richmond Unified School District.
Charlesetta Braggs-Ford Papers. In 1963 Braggs-Ford, together with Savannah A. Bello, founded the Richmond chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to address discriminatory practices in local housing and employment. The Charlesetta Braggs-Ford Papers consists of reports, bulletins, correspondence, flyers, conference programs, papers, brochures, pamphlets, newsletters, and newspaper clippings that document the activities of the Richmond chapter of CORE.
Ronald V. Dellums Congressional Papers. Papers documenting Dellums' 27-year career (1971-1998) as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives include subject files on Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA). BWOPA was founded in 1968 as an outgrowth of Bay Area Women for Dellums, a group involved in fundraising for Dellums' run for congressional office. Original group members included Alfreda Abbott, Margaret Amoureaux, Belva Davis, Ruth Hagwood-Webb, Aileen Hernandez, Ella Hill Hutch, Mary Jane Johnson, Dorothy Pitts, Teola Sanders, Frances Taylor and Dezie Woods-Jones. In April 1971, Black Women Organized for Political Action was officially formed during a meeting at the Rainbow Sign in Berkeley, California.
Jean M. Martin Pinder Papers. Jean M. Martin Pinder (1916-2014) was among the first African American women to graduate from the Yale School of Public Health and an advocate for health education policy and population family planning policy in pre- and early post-Independence-era Africa. The Jean M. Martin Pinder papers consist of various certificates and recognitions, photographs of Simms Martin family members, and a copy of Pinder’s 1935 San Francisco State University Franciscan yearbook inscribed by classmates and faculty.
W. Hazaiah Williams Papers. The W. Hazaiah Williams Papers consists of the administrative files of the Center for Urban-Black Studies and assorted subject files, photographs, notebooks, and printed material documenting the career of theologian, civil rights activist, and educator W. Hazaiah Williams. Includes material from the Center for Urban-Black Studies' "The Struggle for Women Liberation" course taught in 1970 by Dr. Raye Gilbert Richardson (founder of Marcus Books) and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Audiovisual Collection. Includes an oral history interview with San Francisco civil rights activist Tracy Sims. Sims was involved with the San Francisco NAACP chapter Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination in 1963. Chosen because of her energy and public speaking ability, Sims became, at age 18, one of the spokespersons for the largest civil rights protest in San Francisco history. [Listen online]
Henry Williams Jr. Film Collection. The Henry Williams Jr. Film Collection consists of 175 films and 3 reel-to-reel audiotapes mostly documenting the Black Panther Party and student and union protest movements of the late 1960s. The Black Panther Party film reels include outtakes and b-roll footage shot in preparation of the California Newsreel film MayDay and includes film footage and audio clips of Kathleen Cleaver and the Black Panther Party Free Breakfast for School Children Program at Sacred Heart Church. Also included is Childcare: People's Liberation (Newsreel #56) produced by Newsreel members Bonnie Friedman and Karen Mitnik. Featured in the film is the Children's Free School (1970-1977), along with other storefront childcare centers around New York and Carnasie, Brookyln, including The Children's Storefront. Other important films in the collection document the National Chicano Moratorium Committee East Los Angeles protest (August 29, 1970) and student protests at high schools in Oakland, California following the police shooting of Melvin Black in 1979.
African American Museum & Library at Oakland Vertical File Collection. Selected items include:
- Bibliographies compiled by Aileen C. Hernandez
- Newsletters and rally flyers related to the Committee to Free Angela Davis and letters addressed to Angela Davis at the Marin County Courthouse
- Research papers on Black Women's Clubs in Oakland, California
- Material pertaining to Shirley Chisholm and the National Political Congress of Black Women
- Documents collected by the Boss Archives related to Socialist Feminist and Marxist Feminist political organizing
- Black Women Stirring the Waters meeting announcements
- Bay Area Black Women's Health Project information
- Items documenting the history of the Center for Women and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union
- Writings by Patricia Murphy Robinson, creator of the Mount Vernon Women’s group and reproductive rights advocate
- Surveys of Faith Ringgold, co-founder of Where We At Black Women Artists, Inc. (WWA)
- and many others
Additional Information
Search the library using the catalog.
Consult AAMLO's finding aids in the Online Archive of California.
We are working to create new resource guides. Have an idea for a new guide? Contact us at aamlo@oaklandlibrary.org.
