Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a tour-de-force of journalism, sociology, and activism. She was also one of the leaders of the Club Women’s Movement. Wells-Barnett documented the patterns of violent lynchings across the U.S., when no government or official authority was keeping track. A common excuse for lynching was the protection of white women, which she famously called a “thread-bare lie.”
Mary Church Terrell was an “unceasing militant” in the fight for racial justice, civil rights and equality. A leader in the Negro Women’s Club Movement, she was also an outspoken anti-lynching activist.
Read Mary Church Terrell’s own words about lynching (from 1904):
In 2020, there was a brief moment of racial reckoning in which a handful of white women were called “Karens.”
Now, in 2024, there is a backlash in which white women want to recover their sense of racial innocence in order to feel better about themselves and this outdated version of feminism. This is part of what “SUFFS” does for its mostly older, straight, white audiences.
One of the many problems with this attempt at feel-good white feminism is that it reinforces white supremacy. There are lots of other problems with white feminism, as a slew of recent books explain.
The next generation of feminists deserve better than this. A generation of young feminists coming of age now, understand that all liberation struggles are connected.
