Attendance:

Rhonda Robbins lives4lov@nyc.com

Jamala Rodgers

Assata Zerai

Debbie Bell

Tiffany King

Erika Smiley

Agenda

1. Black Feminist participation and leadership within the BRC:

We need to identify young women to be nurtured. Concern that 1. they won’t be here, 2. not confident to step up to leadership, 3. at this point in our history, leadership will be a lot of responsibility.

2. How to energize the listserve.

3. How to energize participation in the BFC

Analysis of women’s leadership:

In the EC there are more women than men. The EC is one of our better functioning bodies. Women have dome more than hold their own there. Setting agenda for this weekend’s NC meeting, fightback chair, financial chair—all women.

As we embark on our discussions. We have to see positive as well as negative. We need to pat ourselves on the back for the work we do and not just say there go the men again. We have made incredible contributions to this relatively young organization.

Amadee, Tifanny, and other folks have been organizing fundraising committee.

St. Louis, Philly, Bay Area, DC, NC mostly women running or very active in the LOCs.

NY, strong women but men mostly running these LOCs

Meeting of women in this political period—an idea. Plan for 5 years from the founding (next year). It seems that bringing black radical women together would be useful and provide an opportunity to develop more leadership.

Newsletter to communicate what people are doing. People are doing what they can where they can. It would be empowering us to us to know what is going on. It would be attractive to new members. Success is attractive. This would also lay a foundation for identifying future national leaders.

Need to pump up BFC meetings more. Call a meeting for not just feminist caucus but a broad event. Some black women have a problem with ‘feminist’ nomenclature. Have a panel discussion of various women sponsored by the BRC.

The ‘F’ word is abrasive to some folks. However on the international scene, women of color embrace the term feminism.

We could do training for us to promote confidence. E.G. How to handle patriarchy. Have intimate trainings that are safe spaces on how to organize as women. International women’s month as a tartget point. With the impending war, our sons, bros, husbands and women’s lives need to be saved. It is the height of feminism to save the lives of your loved ones. Would fit beautifully with our fightback program. We need to discuss fighting for our families and fighting against imperialism. A day retreat-feminist trainings, feminist panel, & feminist fightback event. We’ll call it the "Black Feminist Retreat". Organize food.

Need to decide whether half-day or whole day.

Shall we reach out to our veteran caucus members who are no longer active? The best way is through our program activity. We can invite them to play particular roles in specific events.

Tiffany has a contact with trainers who could help us this with aspect of our retreat.

Assata will ask Cathy Cohen about trainers from the Detroit meeting.

Address issues of people feeling slighted in the training.

Training Topics—Our brainstorming:

How to participate in a meeting

How to do fundraising

Why we are black feminists—the whole definition of feminism needs to be tackled. All these women who worked in their housing projects for better environment and those who struggled in the church for parity. Women do a heck of a lot of stuff from striggling in children’s schools to anti-war work. Women fighting in the projects with the city gov’t for a lightbulb in the hallway is a feminist concern even though we often don’t consider her. We need to address the multilevels of women’s work. Women struggling with survival issues won’t always be on picket lines because they are preoccupied. Struggling against patriarchal structures is of course part of feminism.

Many of these issues are emotional. And there needs to be enough time for people to process these issues. People need to be in a non-threatening space. May want to keep the meeting a half-day meeting so that we can have extra time to process issues.

Could have a period of debriefing at the end.

Allies meeting (for brothers in BRC and partners of women who attend the Black Feminist Retreat)—what it means to be anti-sexist; ask a brother to organize this with our input.

Could send out feelers beforehand about workshops of interest and to figure out if should be simultaneous or consecutive.

Could get three trainers. And then be flexible about the number of consecutive workshops/trainings we have.

6 Women attended.

Agenda

1. Black Feminist participation and leadership within the BRC:

We need to identify young women to be nurtured. Concern that 1. they won’t be here, 2. not confident to step up to leadership, 3. at this point in our history, leadership will be a lot of responsibility.

2. How to energize the listserve.

3. How to energize participation in the BFC

Our analysis of black women’s leadership in the BRC showed that:

In the EC there are more women than men. The EC is one of our better functioning bodies. Women have dome more than hold their own there. Setting agenda for this weekend’s NC meeting, fightback chair, financial chair—all women.

As we embark on our discussions. We have to see positive as well as negative. We need to pat ourselves on the back for the work we do and not just say there go the men again. We have made incredible contributions to this relatively young organization.

Amadee, Tifanny, and other folks have been organizing fundraising committee.

St. Louis, Philly, Bay Area, DC, NC mostly women running or very active in the LOCs.

It was our impression that in the NY LOCs, strong women but men mostly running these LOCs

1. Start a BFC newsletter to give folks across the country a sense of what is going on with sistas in their areas. This would also be a mechanism for identifying young leadership to be nurtured to take on national leadership responsibilities.

2. Hold a Black Feminist Retreat the Friday before the next NC meeting in March.

In our half-day retreat, we would do feminist trainings, feminist panel, & feminist fightback event.

· We could do training for us to promote confidence. E.G. How to handle patriarchy. Have intimate trainings that are safe spaces on how to organize as women.

· Training Topics—Our brainstorming: How to participate in a meeting; How to do fundraising; Why we are black feminists—the whole definition of black feminism needs to be tackled. We need to stress the multiplicative nature of the oppressions we combat.

· Many of these issues are emotional. And there needs to be enough time for people to process these issues. People need to be in a non-threatening space. May want to keep the meeting a half-day meeting so that we can have extra time to process issues.

· Could send out feelers beforehand about workshops of interest and to figure out if should be simultaneous or consecutive.

· Could get three trainers. And then be flexible about the number of consecutive workshops/trainings we have.

· Allies meeting (for brothers in BRC and partners of women who attend the Black Feminist Retreat)—what it means to be anti-sexist; ask a brother to organize this with our input.

· Tasks:

Tiffany has a contact with trainers who could help us this with aspect of our retreat.

Assata will ask Cathy Cohen about trainers from the Detroit meeting. She will also post a summary on the listserve to solicit input.

Black Radical Congress
National Office
Columbia University Station
P.O. Box 250791
New York, NY 10025-1509
blackradicalcongress@email.com