One of our fantastic Year 11 students, Lucy, has started researching significant historical figures from the LGBTQI+ community. Her first post, on Audre Lorde, is a must read. She is a fascinating person and a champion of civil rights for all.
Audre Lorde (18th February 1934 – 17th November 1992)
Audre Lorde describes herself best: “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. She was one of the most influential figures in the exploration of civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and of black female identity. She earned a Master’s degree in Library Science, won the National Endowment for the Rats grant for poetry, and was New York State’s poet laureate from 1991 until 1992, when she died of cancer.
She was born in Harlem, New York City to West Indian parents, and grew up attending Catholic schools during the Great Depression and WW2. It was during High School that she published her first poem in Seventeen magazine. Indeed, Lorde commented in Black Women Writers about the significant role poetry played in her early life: “I used to speak in poetry. I would read poems, and I would memorise them. People would say, well what do you think, Audre. What happened to you yesterday? And I would recite a poem and somewhere in that poem would be a line or a feeling I would be sharing. In other words, I literally communicated through poetry. And when I couldn’t find the poems to express the things I was feeling, that’s what started me writing poetry, and that was when I was twelve or thirteen.”
After gaining her BA and BLS, she worked as a librarian throughout the sixties in New York public schools. She then married Edwin Rollins and had two children with him, before divorcing in 1970. Two years later, she met her long-time partner, Frances Clayton.
Around this time, Lorde also began teaching at Tougaloo College, and these experiences as a queer black woman in the world of heavily white dominated academia were very influential in her later works. In such, she made critical contributions to race studies, queer theory and feminist theory, by combining her political aims and more personal experiences. In such, she is considered one of the first to describe “intersectional feminism” (though please note that the term wasn’t actually coined by her) : the relationship between one’s race, sexuality and gender identity (among other things), specifically as a woman. Lorde also fought against the marginalisation of such categories as “lesbian” and “black woman”, concerned with modern society’ tendency to pigeonhole people.
Her prose is also very notable, particularly The Cancer Journals, which recount her experiences with breast cancer and mastectomy, as well as confronting the possibility of her death. Lorde frequently addressed the silence surrounding cancer and illness and the lived experience of women. For example, Lorde explained her decision not to wear a prosthesis after undergoing a mastectomy in the Journals: “Prosthesis offers the empty comfort of ‘Nobody will know the difference.’ But it is that very difference which I wish to affirm, because I have lived it, and survived it, and wish to share that strength with other women. If we are to translate the silence surrounding breast cancer into language and action against this scourge, then the first step is that women with mastectomies must become visible to each other.”
In 1981, Audre Lorde and fellow writer, Barbara Smith, founded the Kitchen Table: Women of Colour Press, which was dedicated to furthering the writings of black feminists. She was also extremely concerned about the plight of black women under apartheid in South Africa, and remained active on their behalf throughout the rest of her life. Lorde addressed her concerns to the world, not just the US, encouraging a celebration of our differences, which are often utilised within society as tools of isolation rather than of growth.
In 1994, the Audre Lorde Project was founded in her name. It is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color community organizing center, focusing on the New York City area. It was established by Advocates for Gay Men of Color (a multi-racial network of gay men of color HIV policy advocates), who expressed the need for unified community strategies to address the many issues that LGBT+ people of colour face. As such, ALP seeks to work with different organisations and communities across differences of race/ethnicity, gender, age, ability and life experiences (e.g. class, immigration status, HIV serostatus, health status, etc.) Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, they work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice. Committed to struggling across differences, they seek to responsibly reflect, represent and serve many communities. It is an amazing cause, so please donate if you can!
Sources:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde
https://www.biography.com/writer/audre-lorde
