ADEFRA: Black German Womenxo

HRNet, 23 February 1995

This article comes from HRNet. For more information please write to Debra Guzman at DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org

ADEFRA
Black German Women
Black Women in Germany

c/o Kofra
Baaderstr. 30
D-80469 Munich, Germany
Tel: +49 089 201 36 26
Fax: +49 089 201 27 47

Who Is ADEFRA?

ADEFRA is an amalgamation of Black German women and Black women in Germany to speak for and represent themselves. The name ‘ADEFRA’ means, in an Ethiopian language: The Woman Who Shows Courage.

While working on the book, Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out [published by the University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. Original title: Farbe bekennen—Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte; edited by Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz (Ayim), Dagmar Schulz, Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1986], regular meetings started nationwide. Out of ADEFRA the Initiative of Black Germans/Black People in Germany (ISD) came into being where women and men work together.

We are Black women, born and/or grown up in the Federal Republic of Germany or the former German Democratic Republic and Black migrant women.

Our reality of life is mainly determined by being Black as well as being women and by living in white social relations without the background of a Black community.

ADEFRA was specifically founded to enable Black women to explore the basic questions of what it means to be a Black woman in the white German society.

Objectives

ADEFRA fights for the end of prejudices, discrimination, racism and sexism.

We want to contribute to uncovering and changing racist structures, behaviors and stereotypes in everyday life, in institutions, in the media and in legislation.

We want to be recognized and respected as part of German society.

We want German society to have an analytical view of German history and politics concerning Black people, especially Black women.

ADEFRA is a forum for Black women:

to discuss Black history and culture.
to strengthen ourselves for our Black feminist struggle.
to define and clarify the collective position of Black women on issues that affect the quality of our lives.
to develop the leadership potential of Black women by encouraging and facilitating our entry into public services.
to build and strengthen our Black consciousness and Black identity in the white German society.

What Does ADEFRA Do?

ADEFRA organizes and participates in local, national and international meetings mainly for Black women and also for People of Color in general.

Activities

seminars, workshops, conferences, exhibitions, readings and other events
support of publications
establishing and coordination of working sessions
cultural events
networking
cooperation with other organizations and groups which have the same objectives
creating a library and an archive

Planned Activities

to create a center for Black Germans/Black people in Germany, with the focus on Black women, children and youth

In Honor of Audre Lorde

We will begin to see each other as we dare to begin to see ourselves; we will begin to see ourselves as we begin to see each other, without aggrandizement or dismissal or recriminations, but with patience and understanding for when we do not quite make it, and recognition and appreciation for when we do.
Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde initiated the book Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. She brought us together; she showed us the way to a self-determined way of life. She taught us to articulate our oppression, in order to fight it. She helped us to discover our self-confidence by making us tackle our stories and the realities of life.

Audre Lorde believed in our actual potential to affect change throughout Germany. We, who had formerly been silent, Black Germans, women and men, old and young. She also believed in our growing power to participate in international change together with African-Europeans, African-Asians, African-Caribbeans and African-Americans (North and South) and all other dual-identity colonized peoples determined to recapture their true identities according to the patterns of struggles started and still moving among all oppressed peoples.

Her lifework is a legacy to us.