Books can change the world. Throughout history there were many writings that marked a turning point, a before and after in the flow of human thought. Texts from the brilliant minds of authors who knew how to read between the lines of their time and not only interpret, but also explain and make understand (both the contemporary and later generations) their reality, which has so many echoes in ours.
But beyond the interpretation of what it is, it is worth mentioning those brave and pioneers who dared to draw with words (and in many cases, with facts) new realities and possible worlds to inhabit. That is why, with 13 books that changed history, we want to recognize the value of 13 works that put on the table not only the problems of their time, but also a series of alternatives raised with the aim of making the world a fairer place, more egalitarian, more sustainable.
We begin this series with a work that approximates the work of social and political movements in the framework of the struggle for civil rights, from a feminist perspective. Women, race and class delves into the commitment of its author, Angela Davis (1944), in the struggle for the defense of civil rights of people of color, focusing on the systematic invisibility to which black women are subjected and their claims (a common aspect both to her entire work and to her political activity as an activist), even within the framework of social movements with an unquestionable revolutionary potential. In this book, Davis makes an in-depth analysis of the strategies employed by black women in the framework of social movements, identifying one of their structural gaps: inequality between men and women (even among those fighting for a common cause).
Women, race and class (1981), Davis’s third book, was published after If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance (1971), a first-person account of the figure of the political prisoner, and her autobiography Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974). Davis’s works, written from her own experience and with a direct and honest style, are a true reflection of her way of being in the world: active, critical, dignified and consistent with the values that she defended her whole life.
Women, race and class is the work of an author committed to the last consequences with the defense of civil rights and freedoms, who dared to address the silenced reality of inequality between men and women within the same movements fighting for equality among all people.
Image from the Bettmann/Corbis archive