In a world that has a great amount of inequality, people find different ways to address it. A concept like feminism seeks to address the inequality between men and women. What happens when gender is not the only factor that plays a role inequality? Black feminism looks at the intersectionality of gender, race, and class and how it plays a role in inequality. Black feminism today has grown into a great movement that has sparked many conversations in the United States. There had to be a foundation built upon what we see today. Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells-Barnett were two important contributors to the Black feminism. In their own way, they examined and addressed the struggles of being a black woman during their time period. They created their social theories based on this.
Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells-Barnett had very similar upbringings. They both had slave parents and grew up in the segregated south. These were major influences on their ideologies. They each approached their sociology differently. Anna Julia Cooper was considered an intellectual and educator. She used systemic social analysis to explain the life of African Americans and women. Religion was also a tool she used for her analyses. Wells-Barnett was an activist, researcher, journalist, etc. and used her background to influence her sociology. For both, observation was a key component. When looking at inequality, Cooper used the religion perspective to address the issue. She suggests that Anglo-Saxons were confused with faith. They saw themselves as powerful descendants. Wells-Barnett used the idea of democracy. She examined the failure of the United States to obey its laws. She suggested that many people fail to speak out against the law.
Since Copper was an educator, she studied discrimination against African Americans in education, looked at the denial of African American intelligence and the limited education opportunities for African American women. As a journalist, Wells-Barnett looked into the issue of lynching. Both of this issues center around the dominance. At the time and still today, Caucasians hold power in the United States. They control things such as ideology and resources. They contribute to the oppression of people of color while gaining privilege. In her findings, Wells-Barnett discovered that the dominant (Caucasians) try to dehumanize the subordinate (African Americans) to justify their killings. When looking at this theory it can applied to today. When African Americans are killed at the hands of the police, their past is always brought up to justify why they were killed. They paint them as a criminal.
The past contributions of Anna Julia Cooper and Ida B. Wells-Barnett are visible in today’s society. They both had similar theories but each managed to develop their own way to thinking to reach a common goal. The intersectionality they brought within their theories was something new and addressed issues feminism failed to recognize.