The voices of Black women who have suffered because of racist and discriminatory practices in this country speak on every page of this book, so in this chapter we have concentrated on our organised responses. We have always been active in our community: we began by forming ourselves into small church, social and welfare groups, which were our spontaneous response to the isolation and alienation we faced when we first arrived in the mother country. But as our community found its feet, we organised ourselves into more formal political organisations, and worked alongside Black men to further the aims and defend the rights of our people. Later, it became necessary for some Black women to organise themselves independently, rejecting the notion that the concerns of Black women are secondary to those of our race. All three forms of organisation have survived into the 1980s with equal credibility. Although we have not always agreed on the most effective way to develop our political strategies, we have nevertheless proved our capacity to take up our own specific concerns without
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