Charlene Carruthers
Biography
Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, Carruthers developed a career in community organizing focused on racial, gender, and economic justice. She served as the founding national director of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), helping build the organization as a member-led movement of young Black activists. Her organizing work has also included leadership and advocacy roles with organizations addressing civil rights, media representation, and economic and racial justice.
Carruthers is the author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (2018), which examines Black liberation organizing through Black feminist and queer frameworks. Her work also extends into filmmaking. She wrote and directed The Funnel, a short film centered on a young Black poet navigating housing insecurity and family history on Chicago’s South Side. The film received the Queer Black Voices Award at the 35th annual aGLIFF Prism Film Festival.
Carruthers holds a PhD in Black Studies from Northwestern University. Her dissertation, Black Placemaking: Histories and Black Feminist Literary Imaginations of US Settler Colonialism in Indian Territory, the United States, and Liberia, examines Black placemaking and Black feminist literary histories. She continues to work across scholarship, writing, organizing, and filmmaking, including the film project PLENUM.
BQW Impact
Carruthers is significant to BQW through her development and application of Black queer feminist approaches to organizing, scholarship, and cultural production. Her work places Black queer women and other marginalized communities within broader movements for racial, gender, and economic justice while challenging movements to examine how race, gender, sexuality, and power intersect.
Her book Unapologetic helped articulate a framework for radical organizing grounded in Black feminist and LGBTQ traditions, while her work with BYP100 connected that framework to grassroots movement building. Her filmmaking extends these concerns into narratives about Black queer and trans lives, housing justice, history, and community.
Notable Works
Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) (2013)
A national member-led organization of young Black activists that Carruthers served as founding national director.
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (2018)
Carruthers’s book examining radical movement building through Black feminist, queer, and grassroots organizing traditions.
The Funnel (2022)
Carruthers’s first film as a writer and director, exploring housing insecurity, family history, and the life of a young Black poet on Chicago’s South Side.
Learn More
Carruthers’s official website, including her biography, writing, filmmaking, scholarship, and current projects.
The official website for Carruthers’s short film, with information about the film and its production.
The publisher’s page for Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements.
A discussion guide examining Carruthers’s Black Queer Feminist framework and her work with BYP100.
Biographical and oral-history material documenting Carruthers’s Chicago roots, organizing career, and BYP100 leadership.