The idea has deep roots in Black freedom movements. In 1971, Fannie Lou Hamer told the founding meeting of the National Women's Political Caucus that "nobody's free until everybody's free." In 1977, the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists, made a similar case. Its statement argued that freeing Black women would require destroying all systems of oppression, which would free everyone else too.
A widely shared version comes from Aboriginal activists in Queensland, Australia, in the 1970s and is often attributed to Lilla Watson. It says that helpers are wasting their time, but those whose liberation is bound up with yours can work together.
Collective liberation shapes how organizers think about allyship. It asks white people and other advantaged groups to see anti-racism as part of their own freedom, not as charity. It also connects racial justice to labor, disability, LGBTQ and climate movements.