But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women Faculty Transforming the Academy

Over twenty‐five years ago, Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith published the germinal text All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies. This text cogently addressed a fundamental problem in the American academy, that is, its dualism, which separates race from gender, and black studies from women’s studies. In this essay are stories of faculty change‐agents at two academic institutions who have combined their intellectual commitments to black feminism with their relentless efforts to push their campuses toward inclusive excellence. I share these stories because they capture the courage of faculty who unapologetically draw on their commitments to black feminism and infuse them into the intellectual, institutional, and cultural life of their campuses. I want to focus on microprocesses that bring about incremental movements toward institutional change.