Triple Jeopardy: How a Newspaper Produced by Black Women Targeted Race, Class, and Gender

The Third World Women’s Alliance (TWWA), originally The Black Women’s Liberation Committee (BWLC), was a faction of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They advocated for reproductive rights, voter registration, political literacy, civil rights legislation and other issues specific to Black women. 

“Triple Jeopardy” was a newspaper that operated during the second wave of feminism that focused on the liberation of Black women. They later added focus to all women of color. TWWA “made their debut with the first women-of-color-focused newspaper of the New Left movement in the US. The name of their newspaper, Triple Jeopardy, also reflected these activists' political standpoint and theorization of power--how it is constructed, maintained, and eradicated.”  

Frances Beal was an editor when the paper was in print. She is known for writing the 1969 feminist pamphlet “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female,” which focuses on the misconceptions concerning Black women’s role in society. She chose the name “Triple Jeopardy” for the newspaper to focus on the intersection of race and gender, as well as class. This pamphlet had a global reach as it connected U.S. imperialism and Eurocentrism to feminism.

TWWA was involved in the “Free Angela Davis” movement in the early 1970’s. Angela Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy after allegedly purchasing guns involved in the deaths of two people in August 1970. The movement aimed to free her and other political prisoners. Davis was freed in 1972 after spending two years in prison. She was acquitted of all charges. TWWA believed in a woman’s right to arm herself, a sentiment that Davis endorsed. This was often depicted in copies of Triple Jeopardy. Later in 2023, Davis spoke at a Juneteenth celebration hosted by the Seward House in Auburn, New York.

In the first issue of “Triple Jeopardy,” TWWA discusses the important issues that led them to start a newspaper: “We decided to form a Black women’s organization for many reasons. One was and still is the widespread myth and concept in the black community of the matriarchy. We stated that the concept of the matriarchy was myth and that it has never existed in the United States. A matriarchy denotes a society where the economic power of a group rests in the hands of the women and we all know where the economic power of this nation rests. Our position would be to expose this myth.”

This focus, specifically on women of color, aimed to give people a better understanding of how intersectionality had a political impact on women around the world.