[2] At school, she was active in the civil rights movements and was one of the student leaders chosen to negotiate with Douglas Knight, the university president, during the Silent Vigil, the protest march at Duke after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.
[4] In 1972, Small and Madeline Davis taught Lesbianism 101 at the University at Buffalo's Women Studies College.
[3] One of the notable theories Small introduced was the idea that lesbianism is not only a sexual category but also a political strategy.
[7] She argued that lesbians have a capability to create new ways of understanding the material conditions that determine class positions of women.
[7] Small have also attacked the so-called "ideology of heterosexuality", which she claimed justified the male-beneficent organization of women's labor, specifically, the procreation and socialization of children, physical, and emotional care as well as the satisfaction of their husband's sexual needs.