Black Dahlias – The Radical Black Femme and Black Feminist Traditions Within Black Studies

Abstract Navigating academia in the early 2000’s as a young Black queer femme proved difficult as I encountered immense pushback in my Black Studies graduate program over my feminist and queer identities. While this current moment in Black Studies has ushered in more inclusive iterations of what is considered Black Studies work, this article revisits the historical literary attacks on Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, Michelle Wallace, and Alice Walker’s art by Black Studies writers and thinkers. Further, this article utilizes the life narratives of Frances Thompson, Ruth Ellis, and Sweet Evening Breeze, to contend that this current and expansive moment in Black Studies is due to Black femme activists, Black feminist thinkers and writers who all used their art and activism to ignite political change and social action within the discipline of Black Studies and within Black communities.