At Spelman, Race Often Takes Precedence Over Gender

By Courtney Leatherman

Atlanta, Georgia -- What most defines a black woman -- her race or her gender?

That's a question that many African-American women have struggled with. But at Spelman College, a black women's college, the answer has often been race.

Race ties these women to their community, their church, and the civil-rights movement. Race has also alienated many of them, and other non-white women, from the contemporary feminist movement in general, and from academic women's studies in