“We Came Together and We Fought”

For over sixty years Kipp Dawson has built coalitions on the front lines of the civil rights movement, Vietnam antiwar movement, women’s movement, gay liberation movement, labor movement, and education justice movement, confronting state-sponsored violence and challenging systems of active harm and death. Her astonishing career—and marginalized identities as a lesbian, Jewish, working-class woman from a multiracial family—demonstrates the radical power of ordinary people engaged in collective, transformative action. In this visual essay, the authors share material from two new archival collections spanning the remarkable breadth and depth of Dawson’s intersectional feminist activism. They suggest rethinking movement leadership as women’s radical collaboration and demonstrate its role in organizing both resistance to state violence and alternative visions for the nation.