Mab Segrest is an American lesbian feminist and anti-racist writer, scholar and activist. Segrest is best known for her 1994 autobiographical work Memoir of a Race Traitor, which won the Editor's Choice Lambda Literary Award.
Segrest has founded, served on the boards of, and consulted with a wide range of social justice organizations throughout her life and is a recognized speaker and writier on issues of sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and other forms of oppression. From 1983 to 1990, Segrest worked with North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence, for which she is credited by many for ridding North Carolina of the Ku Klux Klan. From 1992 to 2000 she served as coordinator of the Urban-Rural Mission, part of the URM network of the World Council of Churches.
Writing
Until it disbanded in 1983, Segrest was a member of the Southern feminist writing collective Feminary, which also produced a journal of the same name. Feminarians, including Segrest, saw writing as a force for political change, and the journal maintained a Southern feminist focus and was anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and anti-classist. Through the collective and other activist work, Segrest generated material for her first book of essays, My Mama's Dead Squirrel. Her book narrating her experience working against the Klan with North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence is Memoir of a Race Traitor, published in 1994. It was named an Outstanding Book on Human Rights in North America and was Editor's Choice for the Lambda Literary Awards. Memoir of a Race Traitor has been hailed by Howard Zinn as "extraordinary... It is a 'political memoir,' but its language is poetic and its tone passionate." It is considered a key text in white studies and anti-racist studies. In this work, Segrest outlines her definition of "queer socialism," which is how she defines her political stance. This version of socialism demands a more caring world where all citizens are taken into consideration when resources are allocated and opportunities are dispensed. She says that while there is no blueprint as yet for this form of socialism, it would be based in feminist theory and practice. It was re-released in 2019 by The New Press. Segrest's book, Born to Belonging: Writings on Spirit and Justice was published in 2002 and recounts her experiences in activism around the world. Segrest co-edited Sing, Whisper, Shout, Pray: Feminist Strategies for a Just World with Jacqui Alexander, Lisa Albrect and Sharon Day. Segres was awarded a fellowship at the National Humanities Center to support the writing of her Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum on the history of the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia, forthcoming in 2020 by The New Press.
Founding Riot grrrl band Le Tigre mention Segrest's name in their 1999 single "Hot Topic," from their debut albumLe Tigre. In listing important feminist figures, lead singer Kathleen Hanna described the song as "as analogous to a college syllabus":
Segrest was depicted in the 2016 stage play The Integration of Tuskegee High School. The production premiered at Auburn University and dramatized Segrest's time as a student during the 1963-1964 school year in her hometown of Tuskegee, Alabama.
Publications
My Mama’s Dead Squirrel: Lesbian Essays on Southern Culture
Memoir of a Race Traitor
Born to Belonging: Writings on Spirit and Justice
Sing, Whisper, Shout, Pray: Feminist Strategies for a Just World, co-edited with Jacqui Alexander, Lisa Albrect and Sharon Day
Administrations of Lunacy: Racism and the Haunting of American Psychiatry at the Milledgeville Asylum
