Patricia Hill Collins

Women gain social influence through their roles as mothers, transmitters of culture, and parents for the next generation.

Social conditions that spur large numbers of people into action are ignored in favor of a Hollywood version of history focusing on one conquering hero. Since a movement for social change is embodied in its leader, death of the leader means death of the movement.

Far too many black men who praise their own mother feel less accounted to the mothers of their own children.

Black women's feelings of responsibility for nurturing the children in their own extended family networks have stimulated a more generalized ethic of care where black women feel accountable to all the black community's children.

Work for black women has been an important and valued dimension of Afrocentric definitions of black motherhood.

The role model approach to social change is no substitute for challenging unjust employment practices, educational policies and housing.