This book studies the manifestation of leadership as expressed, narrativized, and represented by women of African descent. It uses the language of “rights” and “power” to assert that Black women find strategic alternatives to the male-dominated leadership status quo and are the leaders of the future.

Black Women's Rights: Leadership and the Circularities of Power presents Black women as alternative and transformative leaders in the highest political positions and at grassroots community levels. Beginning with a critique of the assumption of an equivalence between masculinity and political leadership, Carole Boyce Davies moves through the various conceptual definitions, intents, and meanings of leadership and the differences in the presentation of practices of leadership by women and feminist scholars. She studies the actualizing of political leadership in the Presidency of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the historical role of Shirley Chisholm as the first woman to run for presidency of the United States on a leading party ticket, the promise of the Black left feminist leadership of Brazilian Marielle Franco, and the current model of Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados in advancing new leadership models from the Caribbean. This book proclaims the 21st century as the century for Black women's leadership.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: “I am a Woman’s Rights.” Power and Parity Politics

Chapter 1: Assuming the Right to Leadership: Black Women and Political Power

Chapter 2: Feminist Literary Leadership in African Women’s Writing

Chapter 3: Alternative President: Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela’s Challenge

Chapter 4: “Yes. We Want the Power!” “Writing African Women’s Political Leadership with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Wangari Maathai

Chapter 5: Black Women Lead the Desire for a Transformed United States: The Pivotal Role of Shirley Chisholm.

Chapter 6: Advancing Global Leadership Paradigms from the Caribbean

Chapter 7: Marielle Franco and Black Left Feminist Leadership in Brazil

Appendix: Conversations with Black Women on Political Leadership

Bibliography

Index

About the Author