The Other Black Woman, Vol. 1, No. 1 [with] Three Flyers from the Committee for the Visibility of the Other Black Woman: Black Lesbians

Queens, NY: The Committee for the Visibility of the Other Black Woman / The Black Lesbian, 1980-1981. Offset. Saddle stapled in pictorial wrappers. 29 pp. 8 1/2 x 11 in. Prior owner’s inscription to inside cover and first page. Slight bumping to text block and toning to bottom of back cover; else near fine. [and] Three flyers. Offset. 8 1/2 x 11 in. All very good, bearing lines from folding, pinholes, one with soiling. Item #10345

Three flyers and the sole journal published by the Committee for the Visibility of the Other Black Women, co-founded by one of the organizers of Salsa Soul Sisters. 

The Committee was formed in early 1980 with a mandate to cohere, strengthen, and unify the Black lesbian community in New York and establish connections with Black communities elsewhere. Towards these ends, the Committee organized several events and outings for Black lesbians in New York.

In 1980, the Committee hosted a series of talks and panels to raise funds for a conference on Black lesbians held in San Francisco in October 1980 -- the first conference of its kind. The flyers here record three of these events and provide insight into the topics preoccupying the Black lesbian community as it developed into a distinct intellectual and political strain of feminism: the panels were titled “Lesbian Themes Among the Amazons,” “Black Lesbian Griots: An Experience Sharing/Story Telling of Times Past,” and “Black Lesbian Sexuality”. There was at least a fourth panel held by the Committee, titled “Conflicts in the Black Lesbian Community,” which was facilitated by Audre Lorde. 

The magazine, The Other Black Women, expands on these topics and introduces further areas of interest. The publication’s contents include a reminiscence of the Black lesbian nightlife scene in 1930s and 40s Harlem; biographical sketches of historical Black lesbian life, writing on the difficulty of recuperating Black lesbian history; a report on efforts to establish international connections with Black lesbians in other parts of the world; an article on the challenges lesbian mothers face; an article on African feminist symbology; letters; and poetry. Writers include Anita Cornwell, Ann Allen Shockley, Therese L. Baker, and Luvenia Pinson, among others. Pinson, a founding member of Salsa Soul Sisters, the first lesbian of color organization in the country, wrote the opening statement for the magazine and identifies herself as one of six members of the Committee. 

In addition to the articles, the magazine promoted a planned conference on Black lesbians in Haiti; however, The Committee dissolved shortly after the publication of this first issue of the magazine and the conference was not realized. Also of note are ads for discos in The Bronx and Harlem; a women’s film distribution company called Women Make Movies, Inc.; No More Cages, the women’s prison newsletter; and women’s bookstores and restaurants, indexing how the Committee was embedded in the larger cultural spheres of Black culture and the feminist movement in New York.

Four documents from a nearly unrecorded organization that played an important role in consolidation of Black lesbianism as a distinct intellectual and political project.

“The desire to eliminate the first of our endangerments, ‘the state of our separateness’ is a resonated consideration. We have always been a people in transition, moving, and creating new orders in the American experience. Our journeys go unseen, unheard and unheralded.”

OLCLC records only microform and digital copies of the magazine, and no records of fliers, as of October 2024.

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