Patricia Hill Collins

1948—

Sociologist, educator

Sociologist and scholar Patricia Hill Collins began learning about the complex interactions between class, race, and gender as an African-American girl growing up in a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood during the 1950s. Having learned about the power of education from her mother, Collins not only became the first member of her family to graduate from college, but continued to work hard to earn both her master's and doctoral degrees. As a student and a teacher of sociology, she has devoted her career to examining the ways that issues of race, gender, and class affect people's lives. As a result of her years of study, teaching, and extensive writing, Collins has become one of the most respected and innovative social theorists in the United States, becoming in 2008 the first black woman to head the American Sociological Association.

Collins was born Patricia Hill on May 1, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father, Albert Hill, worked in a factory that produced automobile jacks, and her mother, Eunice, worked in an office as a secretary. The Hills lived in a largely working-class, African-American neighborhood in North Philadelphia, and young Patricia grew up roller skating and jumping double Dutch rope with friends on her block, enjoying considerable freedom in a secure environment of watchful neighbors and family friends. The African-American neighborhoods of 1950s Philadelphia were the birthplace of doo-wop, a kind of rhythm and blues sung by groups in harmony, and Collins developed her creativity and imagination with her friends as they made their own entertainment, singing and playing music in the streets. Collins learned to play trumpet, piano, and organ and earned money during her highschool years by playing organ at her church.

Because both her parents worked to support the family, Collins entered day care when she was two and a half years old. There she was nurtured by kind and attentive African-American women who began teaching her some of the skills she would need when she entered the Philadelphia public school system. Her mother also inspired Collins with a love of reading and education. Eunice Hill had dreamed of becoming an English teacher and had attended Howard University, the respected historically black college in Washington, DC, for a short time. With little money to complete her education, Eunice had been forced to abandon her dream of teaching. However, as a devoted mother, she passed on her love of learning by teaching her daughter to read and introducing her to the public library, a plain little building that Eunice approached with the respect she would give a public monument.

Received Scholarship to Brandeis

When she started elementary school, Collins entered a different world from her safe and supportive neighborhood. The early lessons she had received from her mother and her day-care teachers helped her to continue to learn when she entered Frederick Douglas Elementary School with its huge classes and overworked teachers. She later attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls—known as Girls' High—which had been founded in 1848 as the nation's first public high school for women. Collins entered Girls' High during the early 1960s, when schools across the country were beginning the process of desegregation, and she was one of very few African-American girls in the college preparatory track.

Upon her graduation from Girls' High, Collins received a scholarship offer from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. A liberal college that wished to increase the diversity of its student body, Brandeis had initiated an outreach program aimed at attracting African-American students. Such outreach programs were called "affirmative action" and were designed to partially compensate for widespread discrimination against such groups as people of color and women by actively recruiting members of those groups for college entrance or jobs.

Collins entered Brandeis in the fall of 1965. She majored in sociology, the study of society and how individuals and groups interact within it. As an African-American woman who grew up within the working class, Collins knew that she represented several different societal groups within herself. She was very interested in the complex way in which these different identities interacted to make her the person she was. The study of sociology allowed her to explore how social identity affects the way people live, work, and interact.

After her graduation from Brandeis in 1969, Collins pursued her master of arts in teaching at nearby Harvard University. As part of her graduate program, she began teaching at St. Joseph's Community School, an alternative Catholic school that was part of the Archdiocese of Boston parochial school system. Collins enjoyed her work at St. Joseph's, not only teaching seventh and eighth grades, but also helping to organize parents and students in a broad-based community development program.

Began Teaching Sociology

In 1976 Collins left St. Joseph's to take a job at Tufts University, directing the school's African American Center, a campus institution formed during the late 1960s to promote black culture. Under Collins, the center worked both to support African-American students at the largely white university and to educate all students about black cultural, political, and academic ideas. A feminist, Collins also worked to raise consciousness about black women's issues at the center.

At a Glance …

Born Patricia Hill on May 1, 1948, in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of Albert (a factory worker) and Eunice (a secretary) Hill; married Roger L. Collins (a professor), 1977; children: Valerie Lisa. Education: Brandeis University, BA, sociology, 1969, PhD, sociology, 1984; Harvard University, MAT, social science education, 1970.

Career: Harvard University, teacher and curriculum specialist for teacher trainer program, 1970-73; St. Joseph's Community School, curriculum specialist, 1973-76; Tufts University, African American Center, director, 1976-80, special assistant to the president, 1980; University of Cincinnati, Department of African-American Studies, assistant professor, 1982-87, associate professor, 1987-94, professor, 1994-2005, Charles Phelps Taft professor emeritus, 2005—, acting chair, 1987-88, chair, 1999-02; PHC Educational Services, founder and president, 2002—; University of Maryland, Department of Sociology, Wilson Elkins professor, 2005—.

Selected memberships: American Sociological Association, president, beginning 2008; National Women's Studies Association; National Council for Black Studies; Association of Black Sociologists; Society of the Study of Social Problems.

Selected awards: Class of 1955 Endowment Fund Prize, Brandeis University, 1969; Black Arts Festival Award, University of Cincinnati, 1983; C. Wright Mills Award, Society of the Study of Social Problems, 1991, for Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment; Career Woman of Achievement Award, YWCA of Cincinnati, OH, 1993; Distinguished Book Award, American Sociological Association, 2007, for Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism.

Addresses: Office—University of Maryland, Department of Sociology, 4105 Art-Sociology Bldg., College Park, MD 20742-1315. Web—pcollins@socy.umd.edu.

During the early 1980s Collins returned to Brandeis to continue her education, earning her Ph.D. in 1984. Two years earlier she had began her college teaching career as an assistant professor in the African-American studies department at the University of Cincinnati. There she worked in both African-American studies and sociology as an associate professor and professor. Along with teaching, Collins began work to equalize education by developing academic programs that would promote the success of black students by focusing on the ways their needs differed from those of white students.

During her career of studying and teaching sociology, Collins wrote and published books and articles that reflected a new way of looking at society. In works such as Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, first published in 1990, she explored the complex interconnections between race, class, and gender, and how racist ideas have continued in society even after legalized racism was ended. Collins used examples from literature, music, oral history, and academic research to show how ideas and stereotypes that originated as long ago as the era of slavery continue to keep white people from viewing blacks as whole people. She also wrote extensively about the ways that these stereotypes even affect how African Americans view themselves and their community.

Wrote about Race, Class, and Gender

One of Collins's most important contributions to sociological thought was her vision of society as a network of intricate interactions. In exploring the interactions of race, gender, and class, she also made connections between racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia, arguing that all of these biases must be eliminated in order to create a just and healthy society. Along with revealing the ways in which black people are often trapped in poverty, and even in prison, by racism, she also points out that sexism and homophobia within the black community are equally destructive to African-American unity.

Writing in an accessible style so that her books could be read and understood by a wide audience, Collins followed Black Feminist Thought with Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice in 1998, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism in 2004, and From Black Power to Hip Hop: Essays on Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism in 2006. In each she continues her exploration of how black consciousness, black feminism, and black culture must be brought together as part of a social theory that includes everyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. In 2002, as part of her work to eliminate racism and promote tolerance, Collins founded PHC Educational Services, a consulting company to help schools, businesses, and community groups improve their relations with minority groups.

In 2005 Collins retired from the University of Cincinnati, becoming professor emeritus. The same year she was awarded the Wilson Elkins professorship in the sociology department at the University of Maryland, where she has continued to teach. In 2007 Collins became the first African-American woman to become president of the American Sociological Association, an academic group founded in 1905. As head of the association, Collins's motto was "excellence through diversity," expressing her deeply held belief that real progress will come only through building a society that includes everyone.

Selected writings

Books

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, Routledge, 1990, second edition 2000.

Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, Routledge, 2004.

(Editor with Margaret Andersen) Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology, Wadsworth Publishing, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007.

Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice, University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

From Black Power to Hip Hop: Essays on Racism, Nationalism, and Feminism, Temple University Press, 2006.

Articles and essays

"Third World Women in America," The Women's Annual 1980: The Year in Review, edited by Barbara Haber, G. K. Hall, 1981, pp. 87-116.

"Cincinnati Black Women Workers: An Update," Urban Resources, Winter 1986, pp. C5-6.

"The Meaning of Motherhood in Black Culture and Black Mother/Daughter Relationships," Sage: A Scholarly Journal on Black Women, Fall 1987, pp. 4-11.

"The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought," Signs, Summer 1989, pp. 745-73.

"What's in a Name: Womanism, Black Feminism and Beyond," Black Scholar, March 1996, pp. 9-17.

"How Much Difference Is Too Much?: Black Feminist Thought and the Politics of Postmodern Social Theory," Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 17, 1997, pp. 3-37,

"Producing the Mothers of the Nation: Race, Class and Contemporary U.S. Population Policies," Women, Citizenship and Difference, edited by Nira Yuval-Davis, Zed Books, 1999, pp. 118-29.

"Gender, Black Feminism, and Black Political Economy," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 2000, pp. 41-53.

"Like One of the Family: Race, Ethnicity, and the Paradox of US National Identity," Ethnic and Racial Studies, January 2001, pp. 3-28.

"An Entirely Different World: Rethinking the Sociology of Race and Ethnicity," Handbook of Sociology, edited by Craig Calhoun, Bryan Turner, and Chris Rojek, Sage, 2005, pp. 208-22.

Sources

Periodicals

Black Enterprise, July 1992, p. 12.

Black Issues Book Review, September-October 2004, p. 44.

Essence, May 1999, p. 90.

Hypatia, Fall 2007, pp. 209-11.

Jet, Oct 1, 2007, p. 26

Online

"Patricia Hill Collins," Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/socy/People/Faculty/pcollins.htm (accessed March 6, 2008).

Other

Information for this profile was obtained through an interview with Dr. Patricia Hill Collins on March 6, 2008.

—Tina Gianoulis