The initial Salsa Soul Sisters group was intended to create a safe space for women of color to focus on their needs and directly address the sociopolitical issues affecting their community.
Meeting spaces included a fire house in Manhattan (1974-1976), Washington Square United Methodist Church (1976-1987), and the LGBTQ Community Center (1987).
[4] The group's impact spans decades and generations, and Salsa Soul Sisters continues to be recognized as a historically significant and successful community of LGBTQ activists who paved the way for many queer women of color.
In November 2019, the Center for Women's History at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library celebrated Salsa Soul Sisters with a panel featuring Cassandra Grant, Imani Rashid, Roberta Oloyade Stokes, and Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, who discussed the organization's history, victories, and on-going struggles.
The Salsa Soul Sisters was born out the need for an inclusive space for lesbian women of color to discuss the problems and concerns they face based on sex and race.
Early collective member and activist Candice Boyce said that, at the time of the group's founding, "there was no other place for women of color to go and sit down and talk about what it means to be a black lesbian in America".
[4] The group was comprised equally of African-American and Latina American women and went under the name "Salsa Soul Sisters" to reference their membership identity.
The Jemima Writers Collective was formed by members of the Salsa Soul Sisters to "meet the need for creative/artistic expression and to create a supportive atmosphere in which Black women could share their work and begin to eradicate negative self images.