Kimberlé Crenshaw on the origins of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality

During her acceptance speech for the W.E.B. Du Bois medal on October 1st, Kimberlé Crenshaw recalls her activism in student protests at Harvard Law School in the early 1980s to diversify the curriculum and faculty, noting that “out of this student movement came critical race theory, a prism forged by Black and ethnic studies, gender studies, critical legal studies, and applied to race and gender power. That eventually begat intersectionality.”