Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around

The founding in 1981 of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press—the first publisher in North America committed to producing and distributing the work of Third World women of all racial/cultural heritages, sexualities, and classes—was partially motivated by our need, as Third World Women, to have complete control over both the content and the production of our words

{"page": 177}

Read in the copy the archive holds, the SUNY Press EPUB carrying ISBN-13 9781438451145, in the chapter reprinting Smith's own essay 'Our Stories: Women of Color'. The same text is in the corpus at work:w0381a4753afbeb37, whose corpus record names that same EPUB. NO PRINTED PAGE IS GIVEN: the shelf copy is an EPUB without pagination. A footnote marker printed as an asterisk stands after 'North America' and is dropped from the quoted span; nothing else is altered. This is Smith's own wording and the archive keeps it rather than paraphrasing, because an earlier draft narrowed 'North America' to America and lost the qualification she wrote. The essay dates the founding to 1981, and Smith's introduction to Home Girls says the same of Kitchen Table and the Third World Women's Archives, 'both founded in 1981'. This passage settles the year and Smith's part in it only as far as 'our need'; her own account of who started the press is the second passage attached to this claim.

We moved to New York City in the summer of 1981 because we had already had discussions in 1980 with Audre Lorde, Hattie Gossett, and other people who lived in New York City, about starting some kind of publishing something for women of color.

{"page": 181}

Read in the copy the archive holds, the SUNY Press EPUB, in the interview with Matt Richardson. The same text is in the corpus at work:w0381a4753afbeb37. NO PRINTED PAGE IS GIVEN: the shelf copy is an EPUB without pagination. This is why the claim can say Smith cofounded the press rather than only that the press was founded: she puts herself in the founding conversation, with Audre Lorde on the telephone before Halloween 1980, and closes the account 'That was really the beginning of Kitchen Table.' The editors' own chapter text in the same volume lists the founders as 'Barbara, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Hattie Gossett, Myrna Bain, Mariana Roma-Carmona, Rosario Morales, Ana Oliveira, Alma Gomez, Helena Byard, Susan Yung, Rosie Alvarez, and Leota Lone Dog', and the contributor biography calls her 'cofounder and publisher until 1995'; both are the editors speaking, not Smith, so the archive rests the claim on her own account and records theirs here. Nothing in the quoted span is altered.

In November 2005, I was elected to the Albany Common Council.

{"page": 248}

Read in the copy the archive holds, the SUNY Press EPUB, in the chapter reprinting Smith's 2012 essay 'Black Feminist Activism: My Next Chapter'. The same text is in the corpus at work:w0381a4753afbeb37. NO PRINTED PAGE IS GIVEN: the shelf copy is an EPUB without pagination. The ellipsis before the quoted sentence is the editors' own, marking where they begin the extract, and falls outside the quoted span. Smith states the election herself; the two terms she served are not in this essay and are attached to the claim as a separate passage from the book's contributor biography.

She resides in Albany, New York, and served two terms as a member of the City of Albany’s Common Council.

{"page": 350}

Read in the copy the archive holds, the SUNY Press EPUB, in the list of contributors. The same text is in the corpus at work:w0381a4753afbeb37. NO PRINTED PAGE IS GIVEN: the shelf copy is an EPUB without pagination. THIS IS THE BOOK'S APPARATUS, NOT SMITH'S OWN WORDS, and it is attached because the two terms are not in her essay. The editors' chapter introduction in the same volume dates the service, 'From 2006 to 2013, Barbara served in elective office', and the contributor biography in How We Get Free reads 'In 2005 she was elected to the Albany, New York, Common Council and served two terms (2006-2013)'. All three are editorial, so the term dates rest on a publisher's biography while the election itself rests on Smith's own essay. Nothing in the quoted span is altered.