50 Years of Black Lesbians: An Ode to the Combahee River Collective and the Salsa Soul Sisters
Collage of the Combahee River Collective and Salsa Soul Sisters.
By Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz
For our lastest installment for our Special Blog Issue, “50 Years of Combahee”, archivist and librarian Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz puts the Combahee River Collective and the Salsa Soul Sisters in conversation with one another as sister organizations who each contributed to 50-years of Black lesbian identity formations with very differing entry points and connections to lesbian identity.
“ ...we are feminists and lesbians…”
As the Combahee River Collective was forming in 1974, so too was the Salsa Soul Sisters, each group formed out of the desire for an identity politic that would shift the landscape of cultural and community spaces for generations of lesbians of color to come. In 2024, both the Combahee River Collective and the Salsa Soul Sisters celebrated fifty years of impact, and it is the very lesbian-community-element that I would like to highlight in this ode to their labor.
Incorporated in 1976 in New York City, Salsa Soul Sisters: Third World Women consisted primarily of Black lesbians and was inclusive of Latinas, Asian American, and indigenous women who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or same-gender-loving. They intended to create a safe space and supportive community, an alternative to the bars. Through weekly meetings, called consciousness-raising circles, members explored and spoke their truths. Other events included retreats, annual dances, and holiday celebrations. Though the Salsa Soul Sisters did not consider themselves a political organization or even a feminist organization, they understood the need for community building and social support networks as tools for social change, most reflected through their periodical, the Salsa Soul Gayzette, and their march in pride during the last Sunday of June in New York City.
The intent of this essay is to pay homage to the Combahee River Collective as a marker of American history that sealed seams in the fabric of our society – enabling the full truth that the Black lesbian was not only a necessary counterpart to our idealized society, but also a political agent in our struggle against oppression and for collective liberation. In reviewing their Collective Statement, it is clear that the Combahee River Collective provided evidence for an intentional acknowledgement of the Black lesbian as that which holds political standing beyond the considerations of desire, yet rife with a responsiveness that disallowed a lesbian-identity to be fully actualized in a political realm. In conversation with the documented experiences and platform of the Salsa Soul Sisters, I aim to call attention to the pain, labor, considerations, and frictions that each of these groups underwent, as that for which a current-day Black lesbian identity owes to our modern day Black lesbian identity as a political identity.
The method I am choosing to arrive at the above conclusion, and I hope others will draw their own conclusions, is performing a close reading of the Combahee River Collective Statement. Putting that text in conversation with a singular experience at a Salsa Soul Sisters event, the scene set by excerpts of violence described in a 1981 Salsa Soul Gayzette issue, compiled from the Salsa Soul Sisters Archive held and digitized at the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
Lesbian Caveats in The Combahee River Collective Statement
The Combahee River Collective Statement announced its members as feminist and lesbian, emphasizing the significance of lesbian identity in the organization’s platform. While it does not serve to speculate on the intense feelings brought on by self-identifying as lesbian in 1977, it is factual that this proclamation could easily have disrupted the legitimacy of the organization and the plight of Black feminism especially during a historical moment when mere mention of non-normative sexuality was outlawed, scrutinized, or denounced. Despite this possibility, the Collective still saw it fit to self-identify as a group of “feminists and Lesbians.” At this point in the political sphere, lesbian politics and discourse was dominated by white lesbians, who aimed to differentiate themselves from white gay male liberation, and thereby, stood far removed from Black civil rights, despite the presence of Black lesbians across these movements of the time. This type of fractionalization led the Combahee River Collective statement to respond directly to a specific brand of lesbian identity, one that was filled with disclaimers and caveats:
“Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand.”
“...we reject the stance of Lesbian separatism.”
“...we experienced several months of comparative inactivity and internal disagreements which were first conceptualized as a lesbian-straight split but which were also the result of class and political differences.”
It was this exact need to enforce an idealized and responsive seriousness of lesbianism, one that focused on reading, publishing, and development of political consciousness and academic integrity that was the precarious space that lesbians could exist during this time and in this realm of organizing. This stands in stark contrast to the joy, celebration, desire, ancestral connection, art and performance, wellness, and pride that defines contemporary lesbian community space. This shift is also marked by marriage, incarceration, and equal legal rights as cornerstones for lesbian activism. It is through this very dichotomous shift in time, from then to now, that I offer an ode to the Salsa Soul Sisters, a group that I am defining as a sister organization, was able to sprout and flourish, as a schism between race, class, and sexuality.
Lesbian Community with The Salsa Soul Sisters: Third World Women
For the women of Salsa Soul Sisters, the choice to co-exist with lesbian community as with other queer women meant this group was not explicitly a separatist one. The focus on community-building through recreation and support meant this group was not historically documented as a political organization. And the intention to open its doors to women across racial identification, pushed it outside of the armored militancy of Blackness. Despite not having a solely Black, solely lesbian, and solely political focus, it is very much the case that many of the “hundreds of women [that] have been active at different times” (line 258) within Combahee River Collective, overlap with the same hundreds of women who have shared consciousness raising with the Salsa Soul Sisters – danced at their parties, attended their retreats, and sat in their drumming circles.
Photo Caption: (1) Names of board members and others who participated in the Salsa Soul Sisters. (2) Names of the ancestors as written in 2018. From the Salsa Soul Exhibition, curated by the Lesbian Herstory Archives.
Salsa Soul Sisters published an invitation and statement to the world staking their claim in the history of the lesbian and gay community. Their platform begins with the following statements:
“The necessity for third world gay women to organize in our own interest is paramount. Existing gay organizations have neither welcomed our participation, nor championed our concerns. Out of this reality, the Salsa Soul Sisters was organized and continues to grow. We function as a loosely structured collective, recognizing the varied age, academic class, and economic differences that exist in the group. We see this diversity as enriching our experiences and contributing to the emotional and intellectual growth of the organization.”
In a sister space, the Salsa Soul Sisters: Third World Women, Inc. was the first organization dedicated to lesbians of color in the country, founded by Rev. Delores Jackson in 1974. The Salsa Soul Sisters celebrated its 50th year anniversary on August 28th, 2024 with a full program at the NYC LGBTQ Center. At the event, there was an ancestral altar, a processional, libations poured, and portions of the archive on display for further homage. The ancestral list of names was mounted, and with a pen filled with ink, new names were added to a blank space. We screened the Lesbian Bar Project film, and finally, I moderated a panel that included Dr. Marjorie Hill, Cassandra Grant, and Selena Mullen, with a surprise visit from Salsa Soul Gayzette editor and former first lady of New York, Chirlane McCray.
Dr. Hill was also the subject of an event that took place in 1981, captured and recorded by member Candice Boyce as an editorial in the Salsa Soul Gayzette. This editorial detailed a violent attack during what was meant to be a joyous occasion. The editorial began:
“On May 30th, a party was given for Marjorie Hill at La Papaya In Brooklyn to honor her receiving her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. The evening started out as most evenings do when womin from Salsa and friends get together. There was much hugging, kissing and all-around hellos as we all danced. But as the night progressed, the space became hot and humid which forced a lot of the womin to move outside for a breath of air. Outside the restaurant, Black men were harassing womin. First it was “Hi, what’s your name?” Then, one fool just stood around staring at the womin with his mouth hanging open.”
This honoring of a community member for her prowess, and her esteemed academic labor, was typical of Salsa Soul Sisters engagements, which continuously upheld lesbian community through support, events, parties, retreats, and other functions. And yet, at a typical function, this episode of violence rattled the women into questioning their level of safety and security.
“When we looked up, a Black man was yelling “All right, everybody down!” In my own astonishment, I became his echo and repeated immediately, “Everybody down! The sound, coming from a familiar voice calmed the sisters and everyone crouched down in their spots because they saw as I did that the second Black man had a sawed off shotgun in his hand.”
Photo Caption: “Nightlife in the City - Salsa Soul in the City” - A zine-inspired DIY hand-drawn MTA subway map rendering of locations where members of the Salsa Soul Sisters may have frequented across New York City, inspired by the flyers, the Jeanne Gray map, and the 1920s lesbian bars map of Harlem. Drawn by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz for the June 2018 Blackburn 20|20 Exhibition in New York City for Salsa Soul.
This retelling of this ordeal provides significant considerations of Black lesbian and lesbian of color convenings in 1981, only four years after the Combahee River Collective Statement. Candice's editorial lays out the facts, without criminalizing the men for their actions. The women are sisters, and the men are guys (not brothers) which also points to the distance as well as familiarity with men that may have been experienced by the Salsa women. This schism with men in the community challenges the assumption of separatism as a dominant narrative in lesbian-identified communities, namely because even separatism would have been a luxury for Black lesbians in 1981, a luxury afforded primarily to white lesbian-separatists. As presented in the Combahee statement, lesbian separatism does not contend with the complicated reality that lesbians of color and Black lesbians do indeed intermingle with men, even if forcibly so, and even when choosing to interact alone. As Candice details, though “no one was molested, punched or shot. No one was really hurt,” it is the reality that coexistence with and among Black men was a part of their daily lives (Boyce). The necessary next step was to put into question the existence of security. How the women might protect themselves and each other from the “outside world” (Boyce). As a response to the editorial, Gayzette editor, Chirlane McCray uplifted Boyce’s plea and demand for increased security:
“This is a time for uniform action. I for one do not feel that simply because I am Black, womon & gay that I must tolerate abuse. We do not have to live in fear. And the womin of Salsa have powers we have not begun to use.”
African Ancestral or third world lesbians were present and at the table of far-reaching lesbian and gay agendas since 1974, and each group chose to contend with race, class, sex, and sexual orientation in ways that felt imperative to their survival. While the Combahee River Collective chose to self-identify as lesbians with caveats and disclaimers, the Salsa Soul Sisters chose to center and celebrate lesbian community across race and class, they had to contend with real questions of physical safety and organizational legitimacy. Each of these two organizations forged a path to a Black lesbian existence that fifty years later would be all encompassing - serious and sexy, fearless and fun, separate and together, full-bodied and future focused.
About the author: Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz is the Dean of Barnard Library. Shawn also co-leads the ALISE Innovative Pedagogy Special Interest Group, and is a co-founder of the Fridays in May: Queer BIPOC Peer-Networking program, co-sponsored by Pratt SI and METRO. She is an original team lead for the Critical Pedagogy Symposium, managing editor for Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, and series co-editor for the Series on Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies of Litwin Books/ Library Juice Press. Shawn is a recipient of the 2020 WGSS Award for Significant Achievement in Women’s & Gender Studies in Librarianship sponsored by Duke University Press, administered by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), for her work archiving the Salsa Soul Sisters, the first lesbian of color organization in the country. Shawn’s research interests include Critical Race Theory and its intersections with queer narrative formation, indigenous epistemologies, ancestral connection, and black lesbians’ herstories and spaces.
Before Barnard, Shawn served as a volunteer archivist at the Lesbian Herstory Archives for over twenty years, five years as an Assistant Curator, and Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning, and Engagement at New York University Division of Libraries, and was initiated into academic librarianship with nine years at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she left as their Head of Reference. With library and archival experiences at various institutions, including Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch, and as Archive Coordinator at StoryCorps, Shawn is an avid reader, writer, and can be found mentoring new and prospective librarians via mentorship programs at ARL, or ACRL-NY. At Pratt, Shawn administers and teaches the core Reference and Instruction course, 652, which collaborates with NYPL’s Jail and Prison Services to distribute reference letters to people who are incarcerated.
Works Cited
Boyce, Candice (1981). “Editorial” From the Salsa Soul Gayzette, (p.3).
McCray, Chirlane (1981). “One Hope” From the Salsa Soul Gayzette, (p.6).
Smith, Sharon, (2011) “Black Feminism and intersectionality.” International Socialist Review (Issue 91). Retrieved from: http://isreview.org/issue/91/Black-feminism-and-intersectionality
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, (2017). How we get free: Black feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books.
“The Combahee River Collective Statement” (1977). In How we Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books, (pgs 15-27).
