The Combahee River Collective was an organization made up of Black feminist lesbian socialists who were active in the area of Boston, Massachusetts, from roughly 1974 to 1980. The collective had its origins as a regional chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization, which had held its inaugural meeting in New York City in 1973. The collective’s membership changed over the years in which it met, but it included some notable Black feminists such as Cheryl Clarke, Demita Frazier, Gloria Akasha Hull, Audre Lorde, Chirlane McCray, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, and Helen L. Stewart. These women saw their work as an outgrowth of the labor and sacrifice of countless generations of women who had struggled before them, such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Ida B. Wells.