In 1979, in her closing address at the National Women’s Studies Association conference in Lawrence, Kansas, the feminist Barbara Smith tried to persuade a room full of white women that racism was a roadblock to “making feminism real.” In her six years in the movement as “an avowed Black feminist,” Smith said, she had seen some promising developments. Feminists had formed study groups dedicated to the problem of racism; women of color were appearing more frequently in movement journals. But despite early signs of “real and equal coalitions” between white women and women of color, white women still seemed to think that taking responsibility for their racism was something they did as a favor to someone else, “solely to benefit Third World women.” Smith insisted this was not the case. “Racism is a feminist issue,” she said, and anyone in the audience who doubted it (“ ‘Oh no,’ I can hear some of you groaning inwardly.…