Demita Frazier

Demita Frazier is a Black Feminist, thought leader, writer, teacher, and social justice activist. She is a founding member of the Combahee River Collective (CRC). While it has been more than fifty years since the Combahee River Collective released their Black Feminist Statement, Frazier has remained committed to the "lifetime of work and struggle" One text was particularly influential for Frazier, which was Woman Power: The Movement for Women's Liberation by Celestine Ware.

Frazier began her lifelong commitment to activism by opposing the Vietnam War in high school, where she helped organize a student walk out in protest to the war. After leaving traditional school settings to pursue her own independent studies, Frazier participated in political organizing and activism with the Chicago Black Panther's Breakfast Program and the Jane Collective. In addition to her organizing and activism, Frazier obtained her Juris Doctor from Northeastern University.

As a founding member of the Combahee River Collective, Frazier's intellectual labor is referenced every time the CRC name is uttered. One of the largest contributions of the CRC statement is the recognition of "intersecting oppressions" prior to the coining of the term intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Which Frazier says in Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's (Ed.) book, How We Get Free that she noted in "probably our third or fourth draft of the statement, I said...we stand at the intersection where our identities are indivisible."

On the subject of intergenerational coalition, Frazier stated in a 2017 roundtable:"...I dream of deep listening across the generations, both to what we find easy to say and to that with which we struggle mightily...Organizing for political change is hard work, particularly in coalition, and core issues--the ability to deeply listen, to tolerate ambiguity and paradox, to demonstrate respect in the ways that are most meaningful when working across and through difference---take a kind of discipline that takes leadership and time to develop." On February 3, 2023, Frazier spoke at Northeastern University Africana Studies Program's Annual bell hooks Symposium: "Black Feminism, Black Freedom". She discussed the importance of black feminism in the face of white supremacy, and the struggle for black women's voices to be heard during a time where black men's fight for equality took precedence. On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, Demita Frazier and Barbara Smith participated in an interview with Black Women Radicals in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Combahee River Collective. She is a practicing unallied Buddhist, committed to embodied loving kindness. When she isn't working she enjoys working in her garden and cooking.