This Writer Gave a Voice to a Generation of Female Authors of Color | Bold & Untold by MAKERS

Barbara Smith, Groundbreaking Publisher

They should be household names, but instead they’re hidden figures. Not anymore. In our new MAKERS series, we highlight the activists, advocates, and all-around awesome women who have been ripped out of modern history books. These are fearless feminists who put man on the moon and girls on the pitcher’s mound; transformed male-dominated industries like finance and construction; and paved the way for others succeed.

Video Transcript

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BARBARA SMITH: One of the ways you figure out who you are in the world is that you experience art that reflects your experience. The message that I got was that Black people and Black women did not matter.

Black Studies and Black literature was about Black male experiences, and women's studies was very much about white women's experiences.

We realized that until we had our own means of getting our voices out and our points of view out, that we would be a few steps back. We needed to have a press of our own.

I meet younger Black women who have come of age thinking that they had great value because they do look out and see their faces reflected. I think that's so empowering and so healthy.