The conditions of collective freedom: Reworking Black consciousness through Blackwomen's praxis in Apartheid prisons

In this article, I argue that Black Consciousness philosophy, as articulated by Steve Biko in I Write What I Like (2004), becomes philosophically universalizable only when it is reworked through a Black women's praxis, already enacted by Blackwomen political prisoners under Apartheid. I show that Blackwomen's praxis , exemplified by Caesarina Kona Makhoere in her autobiography, No Child's Play: In Prison Under Apartheid (1988), realizes the existential and political promises of Black Consciousness more fully than Biko's articulation, which often prioritized race. It should be noted that the goal of the essay is not to offer a corrective add‐on to Black Consciousness; rather, the objective is to build a philosophical reconstruction of its conditions of possibility and freedom in ways that are intersectional, analytical, and in praxis .