The Heart of the Race

By Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, Suzanne Scafe

Book cover of The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain

Book description

Heart of the Race is a powerful corrective to a version of Britain's history from which black women have long been excluded. It reclaims and records black women's place in that history, documenting their day-to-day struggles, their experiences of education, work and health care, and the personal and political struggles…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Heart of the Race as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Heart of the Race is the single most important text of British black feminism. First published in 1985, the book captures the collective experience of black women in Britain and its colonies, highlighting how the long history of slavery and empire, and women’s resistance to them, continues into the present with struggles over healthcare, education, migration, and work. Coming out of the work of the pioneering Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent, the book carefully traces the ways that race, class, and gender are structured together in the lives of African-Caribbean women – what activists would today call…

From Arun's list on racism in Britain.

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