Skip to content
BY 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access May 13, 2019

Black Women’s Transnational Activism and the World Council of Churches

  • Pamela Ohene-Nyako EMAIL logo
From the journal Open Cultural Studies

Abstract

This article considers the internationalisation and institutionalisation of the fight against European and global racism and sexism within the World Council of Churches in the 1980s and 1990s. It presents the ways in which the Women Under Racism sub-programme, the SISTERS network that emerged from it, as well as their respective coordinators—the Afro-American activist Jean-Sindab and the Afro- Brazilian activist Marilia Schüller –facilitated encounters between Black-European women. In turn, this paper analyses Black-European women’s agency within these institutional and transnational antiracist and gendered spaces. I argue that the WUR and the SISTERS network were used by Black-European female activists to meet each other and other women of colour, and to voice and share their experiences publicly. These international gatherings also stimulated a transnationalisation and a Europeanisation of their activism, while being spaces where they affirmed multiple and overlapping identifications.

Works Cited

Angelo, Anne-Marie. “The Black Panthers in London, 1967-1972. A Diasporic Struggle Navigates the Black Atlantic.” Radical History Review, no. 103, 2009, 17-35. DOI 10.1215/01636545-2008-03010.1215/01636545-2008-030Search in Google Scholar

Barthélémy, Pascale. “Macoucou à Pékin. L’arène internationale: une ressource politique pour les Africaines dans les années 1940-1950.” [From Macoucou to Pekin. The International Arena: A Political Resource for African Women in the 1940s-1950s] Le Mouvement Social, vol. 2, no. 255, 2016, pp. 17-33. DOI: 10.3917/lms.255.001710.3917/lms.255.0017Search in Google Scholar

Bolaki, Stella and Sabine Broeck, editors. Audre Lorde Transnational Legacies. University of Massachusetts Press, 2015.Search in Google Scholar

Bressey, Caroline. “Between Europe and the Black Atlantic.” Black Perspectives. AAIHS 27 July 2018.Search in Google Scholar

Campt, Tina. “Pictures of “US”? Blackness, Diaspora, and the Afro-German Subject.” Black Europe and the African Diaspora, edited by Darlene Clark Hine et al., University of Illinois Press, 2009, pp. 63-83.Search in Google Scholar

De Haan, Francisca. “Eugénie Cotton, Pak Chong-AE, and Claudia Jones. Rethinking Transnational Feminism and International Politics.” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 25, no. 4, 2013, pp. 174-189. DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2013.005510.1353/jowh.2013.0055Search in Google Scholar

El-Tayeb, Fatima. “‘If You Can’t Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me Pride’: Afro-German Activism, Gender and Hip-Hop.” Gender & History, vol. 15, no. 3, 2003, pp. 460-486. DOI: 10.1111/j.0953-5233.2003.00316.x10.1111/j.0953-5233.2003.00316.xSearch in Google Scholar

Essed, Philomena. “Naming the Unnameable. Sense and Sensibilities When Researching Racism.” Researching Race and Racism, edited by Martin Bulmer and John Solomos. Routledge, 2004, pp. 119-133.Search in Google Scholar

Florvil, Tiffany N. “Transnational Feminist Solidarity, Black German Women and the Politics of Belonging.” Gendering Knowledge in Africa and the African Diaspora. Contesting History and Power, edited by Toyin Falola and Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Routledge, 2017, pp. 87-109.10.4324/9781315177717-6Search in Google Scholar

Imig, Doug. “Contestation in the Streets. European Protest and the Emerging Euro-Polity.” Comparative Political Studies, vol. 35, no. 8, 2002, pp. 914-933. DOI: 10.1177/00104140223630010.1177/001041402236300Search in Google Scholar

Johnson-Odim, Cheryl. “‘For Their Freedoms’: The Anti-Imperialist and International Feminist Activity of Funmilayo Ranson-Kuti of Nigeria.” Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 32, no. 1, 2009, pp. 51-59. DOI:10.1016/j.wsif.2009.01.00410.1016/j.wsif.2009.01.004Search in Google Scholar

Kelley, Robin D.G and Stephen Tuck, editors. The Other Special Relationship. Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.Search in Google Scholar

Kraft, Marion. “Re: PhD Project on Black European Women Networks.” Email to the author. 27 July 2018.Search in Google Scholar

Materson, Lisa G. “African American Women’s Global Journeys and the Construction of Cross-Ethnic Racial Identity.” Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 32, no. 1, 2009, pp. 35-42. DOI:10.1016/j.wsif.2009.01.00710.1016/j.wsif.2009.01.007Search in Google Scholar

Monforte, Pierre. Europeanizing Contention. The Protest Against “Fortress Europe” in France and Germany. Berghahn, 2014.Search in Google Scholar

Nijhawan, Shobna. “International Feminism from an Asian Center: The All-Asian Women’s Conference (Lahore, 1931) as a Transnational Feminist Moment.” Journal of Women’s History, vol. 29, no. 3, 2007, pp. 12-36. DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2017.003110.1353/jowh.2017.0031Search in Google Scholar

Ohene-Nyako, Pamela. “Femmes de couleur dans la lutte transnationale contre le racisme. Le sous-programme Women Under Racism du Conseil oecuménique des Eglises.” [Women of Colour in the Transnational Struggle Against Racism. The World Council of Churches’ Sub-Program Women Under Racism] MA dissertation. University of Geneva, 2017.Search in Google Scholar

Ohene-Nyako, Pamela. “The Heart of the Race: Black Women Contesting British Imperialism and Whiteness. Third-World Feminist Internationalism in Britain in the 1970s-1980s.” The Dutch Journal for Gender Studies, vol. 21, no. 3, 2018, pp. 249-264. DOI:10.5117/TVGN2018.3.004.OHEN10.5117/TVGN2018.3.004.OHENSearch in Google Scholar

Opitz, May and Katharina Oguntoye and Dagmar Schultz, editors. Showing our Colors. Afro-German Women Speak Out. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992 [1986].Search in Google Scholar

Perry, Kennetta H. and Kira Thurman. “Black Europe: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” Black Perspectives. AAIHS 20 December 2016Search in Google Scholar

Rupp, Leila J. “Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women’s Organization, 1888-1945.” The American Historical Review, vol. 99, no. 5, 1994, pp. 1571-1600. DOI: 10.2307/216838910.2307/2168389Search in Google Scholar

SCArch Jean Sindab Papers. Letter from Jean Sindab to Ethel. 15 December, 1986.Search in Google Scholar

Schüller, Marilia. “Her Name Is ‘Sisters.’” The Ecumenical Review, vol. 53, no. 1, 2009, pp. 105-108. DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2001.tb00082.x10.1111/j.1758-6623.2001.tb00082.xSearch in Google Scholar

Schüller, Marilia. “Re: Interest in your activism and leadership within the WCC.” Email to the author. 27 July 2018.Search in Google Scholar

Sluga, Glenda. “Women, Feminisms, and Twentieth Century Internationalisms.” Internationalisms. A Twentieth-Century History, edited by Glenda Sluga and Patricia Clavin, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 61-84.10.1017/9781107477568.005Search in Google Scholar

Sudbury, Julia. ‘Other Kind of Dreams’. Black Women Organisations and the Politics of Transformation. Routledge, 2005 [1998].10.4324/9780203981566Search in Google Scholar

Swaby, Nydia. “‘Disparate in Voice, Sympathetic in Direction’: Gendered Political Blackness and the Politics of Solidarity.” Feminist Review, vol. 108, 2014, pp. 11-25.10.1057/fr.2014.30Search in Google Scholar

Thomlinson, Nathalie. “‘Second-Wave’ Black Feminist Periodicals in Britain.” Women: A Cultural Review, vol. 27, no. 4, 2016, pp. 432-445.10.1080/09574042.2017.1301129Search in Google Scholar

WCC. “Women Under Racism. A Decade of Visible Action.” PCR Information. Special Issue, Geneva, 1990.Search in Google Scholar

WCC. We the Women, We the World’. Report on the Programme to Combat Racism’s Women Under Racism Consultation 10-13 November 1986. World Council of Churches, 1987.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.14.2/20 “Struggling for Justice and Human Dignity.” PCR Information, n°18, April 1984, pp. 30-35.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.17.1/15 “An Ecumenical Programme to Combat Racism. International Consultation on Racism, Notting Hill, London, 19-24 May 1969.” Final text approved by the WCC Central Committee on 21 August, 1969.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18 Funding request by Jean Sindab to ELCA, July 5, 1989.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18 Letter from Helga Emde to Jean Sindab, February 7, 1989.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18 Internal report by Barbara Loheyde, “Women’s Forum, Nairobi.” July 1985, pp. 1-3Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18/10 Report of the Italian Delegation to Chantilly ConferenceSearch in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18/2 Letter from Philomena Essed to Jean Sindab. 23 July 1990Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.18/7 The Chantilly Report.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch 4223.7.20 Memorandum by Jean Sindab, “Women under Racism and the Church Decade in Solidarity with Women.”6 October 1989.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch SISTERS box. Essed, Philomena. “Implicit Racism. A Question of Control of the Definition of Reality.” Paper presented at the World Council of Churches’ Global Gathering on Women Under Racism. 26 October 1992. Draft version.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch SISTERS box. WUR and SISTERS annual reports, 1992-1997.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch SISTERS box. Letter from Philomena Essed to Marilia Schüller. August 5, 1993.Search in Google Scholar

WCCArch SISTERS box. Summary of the “SISTERS workshop 1994—European Region.”Search in Google Scholar

Welch, Claude E. “Mobilizing Morality: The World Council of Churches and Its Program to Combat Racism, 1969-1994.” Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 4, 2001, pp. 863-910. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/1381010.1353/hrq.2001.0059Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2018-08-19
Accepted: 2018-10-09
Published Online: 2019-05-13
Published in Print: 2019-01-01

© 2019 Pamela Ohene-Nyako, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.

Downloaded on 26.3.2023 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/culture-2019-0020/html
Scroll Up Arrow