The Sisterhood and the Necessity of Black Women’s Intellectual Spaces

In 1977, some of the most influential Black women writers of the twentieth century began meeting in a Brooklyn apartment. Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and others formed a collective they called The Sisterhood. They gathered monthly to share meals, exchange drafts, confront publishing barriers, and sustain one another as Black women intellectuals navigating racist and sexist institutions.Join the Blue Record archives team as we revisit The Sisterhood, explore what they built together, and unpack why their meetings still matter. Through archival materials, letters, and literary connections, we examine how collaboration disrupts the myth of the solitary genius and reveals intellectual community as infrastructure.What does it mean to name sisterhood as an intellectual space rather than just an emotional one? And what are the implications for our own Black women’s intellectual space at Spelman?This episode invites us to see ourselves not just as readers of these women, but as participants in their lineage.