Black women have been saying the same thing for decades, said Nneka Dennie, an assistant professor of history at Washington and Lee University: both their race and their gender affect how society treats them.
As a researcher on 19th century Black feminist thought, Dennie said she is pessimistic about the current status of Black women in the United States. She said she does not believe that Black women will play as large of a role as they have previously in social justice in the new Donald Trump administration.
“Black women are tired […] Black women have been asked to save America from itself over and over again,” said Dennie. “I’m sure there are women who simply do not want to.”
Black feminism focuses on how different racial, gender, economic and social identities can intersect to shape the way one is treated in society, said Dennie. She began studying Black feminism after reading the work of Anna Julia Cooper, an early Black feminist thinker, when she was a junior in college.
After writing her senior thesis partly on Cooper, Dennie felt that she had more to learn about early Black feminism, so she studied the topic in graduate school. Dennie now teaches courses in Africana Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies while continuing her research. Her work has earned her national recognitions such as the 2024 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award and the Modern Language Association Prize for Bibliographical or Archival Scholarship.
However, Dennie does more than just research and teach courses. In 2018, Dennie co-founded the Black Women’s Studies Association, which aims to promote research into the topic and supports junior faculty at universities across the United States.
“We […] thought that it was really important to have a space where scholars who are doing research about or teaching classes about Black women can come together and have an intellectual hub across different disciplines,” Dennie said.
While Dennie is open to more senior researchers joining the organization, she said she understands that those who are more established have likely already found spaces that promote their research.
To Dennie, the field of Black women’s studies is interdisciplinary and can involve research from across the field of political science, history and health.
The BWSA hosts a yearly symposium, and the theme for the 2025 event is “‘No One is Free Until We All are Free:’ Activism, Advocacy, and Academic Freedom During Late-Stage Capitalism.”
In addition to the BWSA, Dennie has founded another organization: Diaspora Discoveries. Diaspora Discoveries is a travel company that coordinates trips to the Caribbean which focus on Black history and culture, according to the company’s website.
While Dennie laughs about founding Diaspora Discoveries to “make money,” the true purpose of the organization is to help educate people about Black culture in the Caribbean.
“I think that traveling, particularly with an emphasis on global Black history, has a capacity to build some international Black solidarity,” Dennie said.
Diaspora Discovery packages start at $3,299.
Trips through Diaspora Discoveries are like a study abroad course, said Dennie. She used the knowledge that she accumulated from taking students to study in Barbados in spring 2022 to found the company.
Dennie said she is looking forward to the self-reflection that will occur and the creative solutions that people will find over the next four years of the Trump administration.
“Even though people feel dejected and disappointed at the moment, Black women and Black people have always found a way to overcome,” said Dennie. “I encourage us to return to the lessons of our foremothers who have persisted and who have resisted in the face of nearly impossible circumstances.”