Black women at forefront in fight for racial equality

Bree Newsome snatched down a Confederate flag at the South Carolina Statehouse. Lesha Evans calmly faced down officers in riot gear at a Baton Rouge march.

Widely published photographs of these and other black women offer some of the most arresting images to emerge from the protest movement of recent years. The photos have come to symbolize the effort by today’s African-American women to take, and keep, a place at the forefront of the fight against racial bias in law enforcement, the workplace and politics.

“We as feminists of color … have been involved in building these movements over the decades, but we have never been acknowledged as leaders,” said Barbara Smith, co-founder of the Combahee River Collective, an early and influential black feminist group.

Unlike many of their predecessors from previous decades, this generation of black women is “demanding that they be respected. They can assert…

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