Through this critical analysis, black lesbian writers and activists were able to use the genre to make necessary interventions in the normative ideologies regarding race, gender, and sexuality which emerged from these larger political movements.
[2] More specifically, the genre allowed black lesbians to examine the homophobia that they encountered in nearly all of their political and community circles[citation needed].
[citation needed] In 1977 the self-proclaimed activist group of black feminists and lesbians known as The Combahee River Collective published a statement in which they outlined their main political objectives to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and class oppression simultaneously.
[5] Within the statement the group declared its rejection of Lesbian separatism, deeming it ineffective as a political strategy because it excludes others, namely progressive black men, from joining their cause.
Other works began to arrive in the early 1980s which featured black lesbian protagonists like Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple and Audre Lorde's autobiography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name.