Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press started in 1980 by author Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith in Cleveland is an American, lesbian feminist who has played a significant role in building and sustaining Black Feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s she has been active as an innovative critic, teacher, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and publisher of Black...

 at the suggestion of her friend, poet Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist.-Life:...

.

Beginnings

In her essay A Press of our Own: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, founder Barbara Smith describes the beginnings of the press this way: "In October 1980, Audre Lorde said to me during a phone conversation, "We really need to do something about publishing". In an interview with Joseph F. Beam in Blacklight Magazine, Lorde spoke to the need to "develop those structures (like Kitchen Table) that will present and circulate our culture." As a result of Lorde's suggestion, Smith assembled a group for a meeting on Halloween weekend in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, the home city of the press in its first year. In 1981, Smith relocated the press to New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Smith, Lorde, Cherríe Moraga

Cherríe Moraga

Cherríe L. Moraga is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright.-Biography:Moraga was born in Whittier, California. She earned her Bachelor's degree from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, California and her Master's from San Francisco State University in 1980...

, Hattie Gossett

Hattie Gossett

Hattie Gossett is an African-American feminist playwright, poet, and magazine editor. Her work focuses on bolstering the self-esteem of young black women....

, Helena Byard, Susan Yung, Ana Oliveira, Rosie Alvarez, Alma Gomez and Leota Lone Dog are all considered co-founders of the organization.

Goals

The group decided that they would publish books aimed at promoting the writing of women of color of all racial/ethnic heritages, national origins, ages, socioeconomic classes, and sexual orientations. The project resulted in the world's first publishing company run autonomously by women of color. Smith describes this as "one of (the group's) bravest steps", as "most people of color have chosen to work in their separate groups when they do media or other projects."

In addition to publishing books, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist and advocacy organization devoted to the liberation struggles of all oppressed people.

Titles

Some of Kitchen Table's most popular titles include: This Bridge Called My Back

This Bridge Called My Back

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color is a feminist anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. The anthology was first published in 1981 by Persephone Press, and the second edition was published in 1984 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press...

: Writings by Radical Women of Color and Home Girls

Home Girls

Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology is a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist writing, edited by Barbara Smith. The anthology was first published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and was reissued by Rutgers University Press in 2000 ....

: A Black Feminist Anthology. Audre Lorde's I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities was also published by the press in 1986.

Impact

Jaime M. Grant writes in her 1996 essay Building Community-Based Coalitions from Academe: The Union Institute and the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press Transition Coalition that works published by the press have "literally transformed the conversation on racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

, sexism

Sexism

Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...

, and homophobia

Homophobia

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

in the classroom in the last decade."