[3] Patricia Hill Collins was born on May 1, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the only child of two parents living in a predominately Black, working-class neighborhood.

I tried to disappear into myself in order to deflect the painful, daily assaults designed to teach me that being an African American, working-class woman made me lesser than those who were not.

[2] Of which she says enabled her "to explore the connections among critical pedagogy, engaged scholarship, and the politics of knowledge production, delaying for a decade the deadening 'publish or perish' ethos of higher education.

As such Collins worked on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion through bringing the research, ideas, and culture Black communities to the campus.

[2] Collins is focused on understanding, in her own words, "How African American male and female youth's experiences with social issues of education, unemployment, popular culture and political activism articulate with global phenomena, specifically, complex social inequalities, global capitalist development, transnationalism, and political activism.

"[9] In 1990, Collins published Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment, whose approach to the title topic was influenced by such figures as Angela Davis, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde.

[10] Moreover, she continues, the theme that "concerns how Black women's unpaid family labor is simultaneously confining and empowering" for them is also extremely important.

[11] These controlling images are utilized mainly to make black women’s subjugated state of being harassed and silenced appear standard and natural.

[14] The essays cover a variety of topics, from historical trends and their effects today, to the current media portrayal of minority groups.

[16] Collins also notes how acknowledging the social theories of oppressed groups are important because their different experiences have created new angles of looking at human rights and injustice.

Collins asserts that people must examine the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality because looking at each issue separately can cause one to miss a large part of the problem.

Her argument for resisting the creation of such narrow gender roles requires action on individual and community levels as well as recognizing success in areas other than those typically respected by Americans, such as money or beauty.

The book is a collection of essays by her, written over multiple years, compiled into one cohesive examination of the current situation of African Americans.

Within the book, Collins includes personal stories about her position as an African-American child who felt "silenced in Philadelphia's public schools" in order to further elaborate on the important role the education institution has in establishing democracy.

In 2012, she published On Intellectual Activism, a collection of personal essays and interviews where she explains how ideas play an important part in bringing about social change.

In 2016 and revised in 2020, Collins also published the book Intersectionality, with co-author Sirma Bilge, which discusses, in depth, the intertwined nature of social categorizations such as race, class and gender, sexuality and nation, and how these ideas create a complex web of discrimination and disadvantage in society.

Additionally, Collins' lecture allowed her audience to think critically about sociological thought and to figure out "what it means to strengthen one's power through ideas.

Notably, Professor Shannon Sullivan of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte penned "Community as a Political and Temporal Construct: A Response to Patricia Hill Collins" in The Pluralist.

In the article, Sullivan connected the four aspects of a politically constructed community as laid out by Collins with Philosophy Professor Alfred Frankowski.

[38] Sullivan ultimately finds that Frankowski's pragmatist philosophy is needed for White America to successfully evaluate the communities in which echo chambers fuel racial ignorance.

Patricia Hill Collins' work has not only been referenced and referred to heavily in sociological circles, but her assertions on intersectionality and the black female experience have also been cited in literary analysis.

In 2020, Parvin Ghasemi and Samira Heidari of the Molana Institute of Higher Education in Iran published "Patricia Hill Collins' Black Feminine Identity in Toni Morrison's Beloved" in the Journal of African American Studies.

Though Seth is a traumatic figure, this portrayal helps to expose the true picture of a discriminatory society that produces such failing characters.

She provides stories of her past from growing up in Philadelphia, her and her parents' struggles, and being in a school that predominately caters to middle-class white students.

[43] In 2015, Collins visited University of Massachusetts Boston and gave a presentation regarding sociological theory, mainly focusing on intersectionality's challenges and the critical inquiries.

Collins leaves the reader on a positive note by saying she believes that America has made progress in being committed to  opportunity, equity, civility and fairness.

[47] In this lecture, she reflected on her sociology career as well as "discussing critically the intersectional approach and alternative knowledge projects, and returning to the core question that motivates her work: What will it take for Black people to be free?

"[48] In 2022, Collins was interviewed by Gênero e Número where she talked about Black Lives Matter, social justice, and the overturn of Roe v. Wade in the United States.

She claims that the "Killing of George Floyd...was very significant in shifting the discussion of that particular social movement to the point where you had people not just in the United States but globally saying we believe in Black Lives Matter and issues related to that.

She believes, "her early work was truly significant in helping other scholars combat the labels of particularism, challenge the language of essentialism in women's studies, and move in ways to demonstrate that our scholarship has much to say about the nature of social life in the United States and the world.