Sherie M. Randolph. Florynce “Flo” Kennedy

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical by Sherie M. Randolph is an excellent and welcome biography of a fearless radical activist who has been overlooked for too long. Drawing from a rich array of sources, including private collections of uncatalogued papers and a Freedom of Information Act request that yielded a 150-page FBI file, Randolph has not only written an essential piece of recovery history, but she has also provided original analysis of and insights into seemingly familiar radical organizations, movements, and events of the 1960s. As she tells this history, Randolph paints a vibrant portrait of Florynce “Flo” Kennedy who, she effectively argues, had a sophisticated intersectional understanding of power and oppression and believed deeply that racism, sexism, and imperialism needed to be fought together. A lawyer by training, Kennedy was a tireless movement activist who endeavored to bridge the black power, New Left, and feminist movements as she translated ideas and strategies from one struggle to another. At heart, however, Kennedy believed that racism was the most oppressive force in society, and from that understanding flowed her determination to make “Black Power into a pivotal ideological influence on the radical feminist politics that was developing among predominantly white women” (7). This dynamic lies at the heart of this engaging, well-written biography.

Art history · Biography · Black Power · Ideology · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Power (physics) · Racism · Sociology · White (mutation) · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law