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Seemingly ubiquitous in American academic research, the concept of intersectionality has become one of the main ways to theorize and describe power hierarchies. But this growing field of research is nonetheless also accused of reifying the modes of social identification that it presumes to challenge. Yet, most critics categorically refuse to consider its heuristic uses. Analyzing intersectionality as a catalyst for historiographical change, this article argues that intersectional thinking has helped to unearth the intellectual and political contributions of Black women since 1989. This article focuse on three important historical moments in the United States: the debates over the 15th Amendment at the end of the 19th century; the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955; and the war on poverty in the 1960s and 1970s.