Episode 10: Beverly Guy-Sheftall

This episode launches Black Work Talk’s mini-series on Black feminism. Steven Pitts’ co-host for this mini-series is Sheri Davis, Associate Director, Center for Innovation in Worker Organization (CIWO) at Rutgers University. We talk with Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Professor of Women's Studies and English at Spelman College. Beverly has been at the center of most developments of Black feminist thought since the mid-1970s and her anthology, Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought, is a foundational collection. During this episode, the three of us discussed the interconnection of oppressions (around race, gender, class, sexual identity) which is at the core of Black feminism. We also talked about the power of Black feminist approach to increase the quality of worker organizing.

Om Podcasten

Black Work Talk is a show that elevates the voices of Black labor, workers, leaders, activists, and intellectuals in discussions on the connections between race, labor, capitalism and culture in the struggle for progressive governing power. On season three of Black Work Talk, new hosts Bianca Cunningham and Jamala Rogers explore the impact of 2023’s strike wave in conversations with rank and file workers from unions that have fought or are still fighting for better, more equitable contracts in 2023; including the UAW, Teamsters, Writers Guild of America and more. Where did the energy for this wave of labor movements come from, what does it mean for black workers, and where does it go from here? They also open the conversation by calling in the 90% of American workers who have yet to organize in their workplace with an ongoing accessible and educational series on the process of organizing and filing to start a union from scratch.