African American women's global journeys and the construction of cross-ethnic racial identity

SynopsisLisa Materson brings African diaspora women into the history of international feminism via an examinaton of the International Council of Women of the Darker Races. She argues that the importance of this international feminist initiative lies not so much in the actual connections between women of different nationalities, which were few in number, but in the conceptualization of a composite political identity for non white, non European descent women on the international feminist stage. To the degree that this framework anticipates the late twentieth century transnational, non-white concept of “women of the Third World,” Materson's work, like others in this special issue, diversifies our understanding of the “first wave” international feminism and provides a more usable history for the reemergence of transnational feminism in the late twentieth century.