Revolutionary Mothering Love on the Front Lines

Inspired by the legacy of radical and queer Black feminists of the 1970s and ’80s, Revolutionary Mothering places marginalized mothers of color at the cen- ter of a world of necessary transformation. The challenges we face as move- ments working for racial, economic, reproductive, gender, and food justice, as well as anti-violence, anti-imperialist, and queer liberation are the same chal- lenges that many mothers face every day. Oppressed mothers create a gen- erous space for life in the face of life-threatening limits, activate a powerful vision of the future while navigating tangible concerns in the present, move be- yond individual narratives of choice toward collective solutions, live for more than ourselves, and remain accountable to a future that we cannot always see. Revolutionary Mothering is a movement-shifting anthology committed to birthing new worlds, full of faith and hope for what we can raise up together.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Alexis Pauline Gumbs was the rst person to dig through the archives of sev- eral radical black feminist mothers including June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and Toni Cade Bambara while writing her dissertation We Can Learn to Mother Ourselves: The Queer Survival of Black Feminism. Alexis was named one of UTNE Reader’s 50 Visionaries Transforming the World in 2009, a Reproductive Reality Check Shero, and a Black Woman Rising nominee in 2010, and was awarded one of the rst ever Too Sexy for 501c3 trophies in 2011!

China Martens is a writer, glamazon, and empty-nest low-income anti-racist white radical single mother. She is the author of The Future Generation: The Zine- Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others (Atomic Book Company, 2007), and coeditor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (PM Press, 2012). Since 2003, China has cofacilitated numerous workshops to create support for parents and children in activist and radical communities at univer- sities, conferences, and healing spaces across the United States and Canada.

Mai’a Williams is the creator and director of Water Studio, which supports and co-creates with underground community artists and revolutionaries in Cairo, Egypt, and she organizes with the Revolutionary Youth Councils of Cairo, which were among the leading forces during the 2011 ouster of Mubarak. It was her living and working with Palestinian, Congolese, and Central American indige- nous mothers in resistance communities, that initially inspired her to become a mother and continues to guide her as she practices this life-giving work called radical mothering.

ACCOLADES

“Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines is juicy, gutsy, vulnerable, and very brave. These women insist on having their children in a society that does not welcome them, in a world that is rapidly falling apart. Their dream for their children, based on their love of them, encompasses the sorrow and the joy that mothers everywhere, whether human, animal, or plant, feel at this time. A radical vision, many radical visions of how to mother in a time of resis- tance and of pain.”

SUBJECT CATEGORY

Women’s Studies/Family-Parenting