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The number of women and minorities entering public office has increased with every election in recent years. In 2000, 22.5 percent of state legislators were women, and although the percentage of women now in office is far from proportional to the population, it represents a large advancement for women. Likewise, blacks make up 7.9 percent of state legislators (as of 1999), a proportion that is closer than ever to parity with the 12.3 percent of the US population that blacks embody. Intersecting both of these groups and often overlooked by scholars writing on either group are black women (who made up 2.5 percent of all state legislators in 1999). While still a disproportionate minority among both women and blacks, black women have nonetheless achieved greater parity with respect to black men (about 30 percent of black legislators are women) than white women have achieved with respect to white men. 1 Of course all legislators have many affiliations, from political party membership to interest group affiliations, but black women are distinctive in being members of two traditionally excluded groups: women and blacks.

Experiences as both women and members of a historically oppressed racial minority group have provided African American women a unique standpoint on feminism (Collins 1991). Black feminist women share with white feminist women the burden of living and working within a male-dominated society, and this has, to some extent, shaped their identity as feminists. However, black women face the additional hardship brought on by not being a member of the dominant racial group. Their membership in an underrepresented racial …