Works by
Barbara Smith
(Activist, Writer)
[1946 - ]

• Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983)
  The pioneering anthology "Home Girls" features writings by Black feminists and lesbian activists on topics both provocative and profound. Since its initial publication in 1983, it has become an essential text on Black women's lives and writings. This edition features an updated lists of contributor biographies and an all-new preface that provides a fresh assessment of how Black women's lives have changed- or not- since the book was first published.

• B. Smith: Rituals & Celebrations (1991) with Mark Ferri (Photographer) -- Winner, 2000 honors book of the Black Caucus of the ALA Awards
  "Barbara Smith, lifestyle expert. Restaurateur, TV host, columnist, former model, magazine publisher (B. Smith Style). You might want to add shaman to the list, if you are to take at all seriously her latest triumph of project vision and organization, B. Smith: Rituals and Celebrations." -- Amazon.com

• The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom (1998) -- Finalist 1999 ALA\GLBTRT Award for Nonfiction
  The Truth That Never Hurts brings together for the first time more than two decades of literary criticism and political thought about gender, race, sexuality, power, and social change. As one of the first writers in the United States to claim Black feminism for Black women in the early seventies, Barbara Smith has done groundbreaking work in defining a Black women's literary tradition; in examining the sexual politics of the lives of Black and other women of color; in representing the lives of Black lesbians and gay men; and in making connections between race, class, sexuality, and gender.

• The Psychology of Sex and Gender (2006)
  Psychology of Sex and Gender provides students with a balanced examination of the influences of sex and gender on behavior and development. The book takes a truly global perspective when examining the relationship between and among sex, gender, and factors such as sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and religious and geographical diversity.

  This richly illustrated book offers a lively writing style and makes research relevant to the lives of students, engaging student interest by including student responses from journaling assignments, excerpts from student papers, and personal perspectives.

  Dr. Smith’s approach to sex and gender is multidisciplinary. She includes research and theoretical contributions drawn not only from psychology but also from biology, sociology, history, philosophy, and anthropology.

See also:

• This Bridge Called My Back (1981), Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds.
  See “Across the Kitchen Table: A Sister-to-Sister Dialogue” by Barbara Smith and Beverly Smith

• All the Women Are White, All the Blacks are Men, But Some Of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies (1982), Barbara Smith, Gloria T. Hull, and Patricia Bell Scott, eds.

• Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (1984) with Elly Bulkin andf Minnie Bruce Pratt
  Book of essays containing:
  
   

  • Barbara Smith’s "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Relationships/ Between Black and Jewish Women"

  • Elly Bulkin’s "Hard Ground: Jewish Identity, Racism, and Anti-Semitism

  • Minnie Bruce Pratt’s "Identity: Skin Blood Heart"

  Yours in Struggle has been adopted for classroom use in hundreds of colleges and universities, and has been a manual for grassroots organizing. It is now considered a feminist classic.

• Homo Economics: Capitalism, Community, and Lesbian and Gay Life (1997), Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed, eds.
  Homo Economics is the first honest account of the tense relationship between gay people and the economy. This groundbreaking collection brings together a variety of voices from the worlds of journalism, activism, academia, the arts, and public policy to address issues including the recent economic history of the gay community, the community's response to its changing economic circumstances, and the risks inherent in a narrow definition of liberation.
  
  For the first time in U.S. history, gay men and lesbians live open lives. From nightclubs in gay city districts to political rallies and Caribbean cruises, this new community continues to reveal itself throughout the nation. However, with this growth, there are also signs of fracturing as economic forces key to its development are now threatening its future.
  
  Homo Economics illustrates the ways in which modern capitalism has eroded the rigid sexual division of labor that deterred gay couples from setting up households in the past. But the book also shows how this economic system has created divisions within the gay community, channelled lesbians and gay men into particular professions, and discriminated against them in the workplace.
  
  After a century of neglect, we have now reached the point where suddenly gay consumers are being courted by corporations, gay money is fueling political campaigns, and gay and lesbian neighborhoods are expanding. The essays in Homo Economics warn us however, that contrary to popular stereotypes, only a narrow segment of the gay community is enjoying economic success and the majority of gay men and lesbians actually earn less than straight men and women.
  
  Homo Economics brings together contributors including Jeffrey Escoffier, Donna Minkowitz, Tony Kushner, Julie Matthaei, Dorothy Allison, Sean Strub, Dan Baker and Lee Badgett among others, to address the views of the gay community towards capitalism. As such, Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed have given us the most comprehensive overview to date of this urgent and highly controversial subject.
  
  See “Where Has Gay Liberation Gone? An Interview with Barbara Smith.”

• The Feminist Memoir Project: Voices from Women's Liberation (1998), Ann Snitow and Rachel Duplessis, eds.
  The women of The Feminist Memoir Project give voice to the spirit, the drive, and the claims of the Women's Liberation Movement they helped shape, beginning in the late l960s. These 32 writers were among the thousands to jump-start feminism in our time. Here, in pieces that are passionate, personal, critical, and witty, they describe what it felt like to make history, to live through and contribute to the massive social movement that transformed the nation.
          
  What made these particular women rebel? And what experiences, ideas, feelings, and beliefs shaped their rebellion? How did they maintain the will and energy to keep such an unwomanly struggle going for so long, and continuing still?
          
  Memoirs and responses by Kate Millett, Vivian Gornick, Michele Wallace, Alix Kates Shulman, Joan Nestle, Jo Freeman, Yvonne Rainer, Barbara Smith, Ellen Willis, and many more embody the excitement that fueled the movement and the conflicts that threatened it from within. These stories tell how the world we live in changed.

• The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History (1998), Barbara Smith, Gloria Steinem, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, and Wilma Mankiller, eds.
  The most inclusive book to date on U.S. women's collective history! A landmark work, The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History, gathers together more than 400 articles to offer a diverse, rich, and often neglected panorama of the nation's past. Written by more than 300 contributors, drawn from various areas of expertise, these narrative and interpretive entries "effectively cover five centuries of women's experiences" (Bloomsbury Review). Here are articles on cowgirls and child care, on the daily lives of single women and the changing notions of motherhood, on the artistic contributions of women of color and the history of Jewish feminism. Wide-ranging in scope and wonderfully accessible, this unique resource reexamines with fresh clarity and brio the issues and concerns that color the lives of all women. Articles and their contributors include: African American Women, Darlene Clark Hine; Cult of Domesticity, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg; Fashion and Style, Lynn Yaeger; Jazz and Blues, Daphne Duval Harrison; Lesbians, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy; Native American Cultures, Clara Sue Kidwell; Picture Brides, Judy Yung; Salem Witchcraft Trials, Mary Beth Norton; Vietnam Era, Sara M. Evans.

• At Ground Zero: Young Reporters Who Were There Tell Their Stories (2002), with Sam Erman, ed.

• AIDS, While The World SLeeps: The First Twenty Years of the Global AIDS Plague (2003), Chris Bul, ed.
  Collection includes the most important writing on AIDS by Amber Hollibaugh, Barbara Smith, Cindy Patton, Donna Minkowitz, Gabriel Rotello, Gore Vidal, Jeffrey Escoffier, Jeffrey Schmaltz, Judith Valente, Larry Kramer, Mark Schoofs, Michael Bronski, Michael Callen, Michelangelo Signorile, Paul Monette, Randy Shilts , Susan Sontag, Tony Kushner, and many others.