Other Kinds of Dreams

In 1984 a group of us who guest edited a special issue of FeministReview entitled 'Many Voices, One Chant: Black Feminist Perspectives' stated in our editorial: 'We have attempted to provide a collection of perspectives which are in the process of continual development, refinement and growth. It the issue also indicated some of the diversities within Black feminism, a diversity from which we draw strength.' (Amos etal., 1984: 2). Rereading that issue now, four years later, it seems difficult to fathom where the optimism and stridency which many of us had who were active in the black women's movement has gone, and why. Where are the diverse black feminist perspectives which we felt were in the process of growth? And where indeed is the movement itself? In moments of despair one wonders if those years were merely imagined. Four years is not a long time, but it is obviously long enough to see the disintegration of what was once an energetic and active black women's movement: a movement which was given a shape and form by the Organization of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAI)) from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The history of OWAAD and its subsequent demise has been well documented and discussed, for instance by the Brixton Black Women's Group in their article 'Black Women Organizing' (Amos et al., 1984: 8>9) but suffice it to say here that there were some very real grounds for the optimism that many of us felt as we witnessed and became part of the growth of black women's groups around the country; groups that initiated campaigns around education, housing, immigration, health and policing. The end ofthe 1970s saw the demise and fragmentation ofthe white women's movement and by 1980 the countless campaigns, groups and support networks that had been build up in the 1970s and which were the backbone of the women's movement were already in disarray, as