Between January and May of 1979, twelve similarly situated black women were murdered in Boston, Massachusetts. Just two years past the writing of what would become their canonical feminist statement, the Combahee River Collective (CRC) mobilized around the series of deaths along with other grassroots organizations and members of the local community. The CRC’s most significant intervention in that crisis was the creation and circulation of a pamphlet that was initially titled, “Six Black Women: Why Did They Die?” that was meant to (1) help women within the affected area know how to better protect themselves, (2) name the conditions that had produced the women’s deaths and the city’s subsequent failure to acknowledge or contend with their deaths in any meaningful way, and (3) evince the value of black women’s lives. The serial murders of black women have continued on unabated since 1979, and this article uses the occasion of the Boston murders to discuss how the CRC’s writing and activism enable a theorization of the serialization of black death that expands meaningfully on the scholarship around serial murder.

中文翻译：

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他们为什么死？论 Combahee 与黑死病的连载

1979 年 1 月至 5 月期间，马萨诸塞州波士顿有 12 名情况类似的黑人妇女被谋杀。在撰写将成为他们的典型女权主义声明的两年后，Combahee River Collective (CRC) 与其他草根组织和当地社区成员一起围绕一系列死亡事件展开动员。CRC 在这场危机中最重要的干预是制作和发行了一本小册子，最初的标题是“六个黑人妇女：她们为什么死了？” 这旨在 (1) 帮助受灾地区的妇女知道如何更好地保护自己，(2) 指出导致妇女死亡的条件以及该市随后未能以任何有意义的方式承认或应对她们的死亡，以及(3) 彰显黑人妇女的生命价值。