Archival Textures - Republishing: Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant

It all started in December 1984, when Ans Sarianamual made a promise to Audre Lorde to start a magazine for Black women in the Netherlands. Together with a group of Black women organized as the foundation Zwarte Vrouwen & Racisme in Arnhem, the first issue of Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant was published only one month later. The magazine (1985–1986) was unique for its time because of its radically intersectional approach, and the establishment of “black” as a political term in order to unite and strengthen all women who were labeled as “the Other” in the Netherlands and beyond. The magazine built on transnational friendships, featuring writings by and about Black women's groups in the U.S., England and South Africa. Besides writing on subjects such as racism, (employment) discrimination and decolonization, Umoja Zwarte Vrouwenkrant published poems, interviews with Dutch Black writers, event announcements and letter submissions in which Black women shared their experiences of racism and discrimination in the Netherlands. This book makes a groundbreaking yet vastly unacknowledged grassroots magazine from Arnhem accessible as a source to enrich the still underexposed legacies of Black feminists in the Netherlands.