With Spring in full swing, we want to bring a spotlight on the power of the collective. Independent collectives emerge as an important alternative to mainstream institutions and social services. Collectives arise to serve as an organized hub for addressing the needs of oppressed people as it pertains to health, economics, politics, and culture. In historical moments that were rife with racialized, gendered, and class-based antagonism, it was the presence of collectives that served as a safety valve—a life-vest for communities to have access to everyday needs when ]governmental and/or private institutions have failed, or refuse to meet the needs of the communities they tower over.

These collective efforts have not always been without struggle. They are often met with co-optation and threats from the State. The free breakfast program once provided by the radical worldmaking organization, the Black Panther Party, was met with extreme pressure and harassment from the government, which eventually destroyed the continued success of the program. Collectives also often face internal divisions and fragmentation due to differences in ideology, strategy, and priorities, as well as tensions due to misogyny, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. 

Nonetheless, collectives have played a life-saving role for millions of women worldwide. Organizations like the Combahee River Collective and Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers have created vital alternative spaces where women can confront their unique oppressions at the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality. These collectives have built alternative systems that emphasize and prioritize their well-being, cultural expression, and political empowerment, filling the gaps left by mainstream institutions that have consistently failed them.

Altar to Our Ancestors

Honoring those who came before us

“As Black women we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face.”

The Combahee River Collective (CRC) was a groundbreaking Black feminist organization active in the 1970s. CRC is best known for its pioneering statement that articulated and emphasized the interconnected nature of race, class, gender, and sexuality as systems of oppression.

An offshoot of the Combahee River Collective was Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, a publishing house founded by Black lesbian feminists, Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith in 1980. Kitchen Table was meant to symbolize the importance of women of color coming together in intimate, communal spaces to share their stories, experiences, and struggles. The kitchen table, as a domestic and familial space, represented a site of both labor and connection, where women of color could support, empower, and struggle alongside one another. 

Read: How Kitchen Table Press Changed Publishing

Read: The Combahee River Collective Statement

For Kinfolk, By Kinfolk

A glimpse into our current wondering

The Women of the Zapatistas 

The Zapatistas are an indigenous liberation collective based in Mexico that advocates for land reform, economic justice, and Indigenous rights. Women have been crucial participants in these struggles—comprising of over a third of the movement since the 1990s. They have engaged in highly sophisticated political actions against economic policies that would harm Indigenous and other oppressed peoples for decades. One of the most significant contributions of women to the Zapatista movement is the Women's Revolutionary Law, which was introduced in 1994. This law was a groundbreaking set of ten laws aimed at ensuring gender equality within the Zapatista communities.

Watch: Women in the Zapatista Movement

Read: Women Of Maize: Indigenous Women and the Zapatista Rebellion

Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers 

The Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, women from Alabama’s rural Black Belt, are celebrated for their groundbreaking contributions to American art. Their quilts, now part of over 40 museum collections worldwide, have gained international acclaim through exhibitions and initiatives like Souls Grown Deep’s Collection Transfer Program.

Rooted in the 19th century, Gee’s Bend quilting began as a practical response to harsh winters, using recycled materials like old clothes and fertilizer sacks. Even as fabric became more accessible, repurposing materials remained central. This resourcefulness fostered an improvisational style, with quilters creating unique, "my way" designs that reflect individual creativity. Passed down through generations, this tradition continues to thrive, blending artistry, history, and cultural resilience.

Betty Leacraft

Betty Leacraft is a “shape shifter of textiles”. As a former teaching artist living in Philadelphia, she specialized in and developed culturally inspired fiber/textile arts projects for under-resourced communities from 1989-2015. During that time, she received residencies, led special projects and workshops in tri-state area universities, colleges, public schools, libraries, prisons, Senior Centers, Women’s shelters, re-entry, and substance abuse programs. Betty is a beloved collaborator of Kinfolk; we collaborated on a monument honoring the late great McCoy Tyner.

Check out Betty Leacraft’s McCoy Tyner Monument in the Kinfolk app.

We Dream in Black, a project of the National Domestic Workers Alliance

We Dream in Black is an initiative brought forth by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which seeks to prioritize the specific conditions of Black women domestic workers. It seeks to transform the laboring and living conditions of Black women domestic workers, encourage solidarity and kinship among the community, and demand full inclusion to labor rights and policies. The project connects the current struggles of Black domestic workers to those of the struggles of Black people during slavery, who labored dehumanizingly for free. 

Watch: The Unbossed Agenda

Read: Unbossed - A Black Domestic Worker Agenda

Dreaming Out Loud

Pathways to new worlds

Stay Connected

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Until next time,

josh, idris, ravon, and the Kinfolk team