"Abolition of Every Possibility of Oppression": Black Women, Black Power, and the Black Women's United Front, 1970–1976

This article analyzes the intellectual development and organizational activities of a nationalist, feminist, and socialist collective called the Black Women United Front (BWUF). Charting the rise and fall of the group from 1970 to 1976, the article begins with an analysis of the collective's origins in the Congress of African People (CAP), a cultural nationalist organization. It then documents the BWUF's organizational and ideological evolution, offering an assessment of how the group's intersectional platform and programs caused CAP and other major Black Power-era leaders to adopt more gender-conscious approaches to Black liberation. By reinserting the BWUF into histories of the Black Power era, the article complicates long-held assumptions about the intractable nature of Black Power sexism and the incompatibility of feminist and Black Power thought. It also illustrates how, through groups like the BWUF, Black women developed intersectional approaches to liberation within major Black Power organizations.