", Contrary to this, Lorde was very open to her own sexuality and sexual awakening. In June 2019, Lorde's residence in Staten Island[94] was given landmark designation by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. What began as a few friends meeting in a friend's home to get to know other black people, turned into what is now known as the Afro-German movement. During that time, in addition to writing and teaching she co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.[18]. [59], In Lorde's "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference", she writes: "Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. In The Master's Tools, she wrote that many people choose to pretend the differences between us do not exist, or that these differences are insurmountable, adding, "Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. "Today we march," she said, "lesbians and gay men and our children, standing in our own names together with all our struggling sisters and brothers here and around the world, in the Middle East, in Central America, in the Caribbean and South Africa, sharing our commitment to work for a joint livable future. Our experiences are rooted in the oppressive forces of racism in various societies, and our goal is our mutual concern to work toward 'a future which has not yet been' in Audre's words."[71]. Through her interactions with her students, she reaffirmed her desire not only to live out her "crazy and queer" identity, but also to devote attention to the formal aspects of her craft as a poet. For most of the 1960s, Lorde worked as a librarian in Mount Vernon, New York, and in New York City. She found that "the literature of women of Color [was] seldom included in women's literature courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in women's studies as a whole"[38] and pointed to the "othering" of women of color and women in developing nations as the reason. However, she stresses that in order to educate others, one must first be educated. IE 11 is not supported. "Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power. The couple later divorced. According to Lorde's essay "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference", "the need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity." Through her promotion of the study of history and her example of taking her experiences in her stride, she influenced people of many different backgrounds. And when I couldnt find the poems to express the things I was feeling, thats when I started writing poetry.. In "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference", Western European History conditions people to see human differences. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. And so began Lordes career as an activist-author, one who never shied away from difficult subjects, but instead, embraced them in all their complexity. She repeatedly emphasizes the need for community in the struggle to build a better world. "[34] Her refusal to be placed in a particular category, whether social or literary, was characteristic of her determination to come across as an individual rather than a stereotype. [99], On February 18, 2021, Google celebrated her 87th birthday with a Google Doodle. According to Lorde, the mythical norm of US culture is white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, financially secure. Lorde was, in her own words, a "black, lesbian, feminist, mother, poet, warrior." Lorde used those identities within her work and ultimately it guided her to create pieces that embodied lesbianism in a light that educated people of many social classes and identities on the issues black lesbian women face in society. While highlighting Lorde's intersectional points through a lens that focuses on race, gender, socioeconomic status/class and so on, we must also embrace one of her salient identities; lesbianism. "The House of Difference" is a phrase that originates in Lorde's identity theories. Lorde, Audre. The pair divorced in 1970, and two years later, Lorde met her long-term partner, Frances Clayton. For most of the 1960s, Audre Lorde worked as a librarian in Mount Vernon, New York, and in New York City. Gwen Aviles is a trending news and culture reporter for NBC News. Lorde was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978 and promptly underwent a mastectomy and wrote The Cancer Journals. In 1984, however, the poet was diagnosed with liver cancer. She was the young adult librarian at New Yorks Mount Vernon Library throughout the early 1960s; and she became the head librarian at Manhattans Town School later that decade. But there was another reason why their marriage was unusual. She was deeply involved with several social justice movements in the United States. Alexis Pauline Gumbs credits Kitchen Table as an inspiration for BrokenBeautiful Press, the digital distribution initiative she founded in 2002. [23], In 1984, Lorde started a visiting professorship in West Berlin at the Free University of Berlin. Audre Lorde [1] 1934-1992 Poet fiction and nonfiction writer, activist Daughter of Immigrants [2] . While "feminism" is defined as "a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women" by imposing simplistic opposition between "men" and "women",[60] the theorists and activists of the 1960s and 1970s usually neglected the experiential difference caused by factors such as race and gender among different social groups. [51] She dismisses "the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. . Though Kitchen Table stopped publishing new works soon after Lorde passed away in 1992, it paved the way for future generations of publishers. Birthdate: 1931: Death: 2012 (80-81) Immediate Family: Son of Neil A. Rollins and Edith M. Rollins Ex-husband of Audre Lorde Father of Private and Private Brother of Barbara Coons. She was inspired by Langston Hughes. "[38] In other words, the individual voices and concerns of women and color and women in developing nations would be the first step in attaining the autonomy with the potential to develop and transform their communities effectively in the age (and future) of globalization. At Columbia, she met Edwin Rollins, whom she married in 1962. Lorde taught in the Education Department at Lehman College from 1969 to 1970,[20] then as a professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (part of the City University of New York, CUNY) from 1970 to 1981. [61] Nash cites Lorde, who writes: "I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there. This enables viewers to understand how Germany reached this point in history and how the society developed. Lorde encouraged those around her to celebrate their differences such as race, sexuality or class instead of dwelling upon them, and wanted everyone to have similar opportunities. They visited Cuban poets Nancy Morejon and Nicolas Guillen. [27], Lorde's impact on the Afro-German movement was the focus of the 2012 documentary by Dagmar Schultz. In I Am Your Sister, she urged activists to take responsibility for learning this, even if it meant self-teaching, "which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. [77], Lorde was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978 and underwent a mastectomy. Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 19841992 was accepted by the Berlin Film Festival, Berlinale, and had its World Premiere at the 62nd Annual Festival in 2012. She furthered her education at Columbia University, earning a master's degree in library science in 1961. An attendee of a 1978 reading of Lorde's essay "Uses for the Erotic: the Erotic as Power" says: "She asked if all the lesbians in the room would please stand. In 1954, Lorde spent a year studying in Mexico, then attended Hunter College and graduated in 1959. One of her most notable efforts was her activist work with Afro-German women in the 1980s. Audre Lorde was previously married to Edwin Rollins. Women must share each other's power rather than use it without consent, which is abuse. Audre had been living openly as a lesbian since college. She was 58 years old. [15] On her return to New York, Lorde attended Hunter College, and graduated in the class of 1959. [33]:1213 She described herself both as a part of a "continuum of women"[33]:17 and a "concert of voices" within herself. While highlighting Lorde's intersectional points through a lens that focuses on race, gender, socioeconomic status/class and so on, we must also embrace one of her salient identities; Lorde was not afraid to assert her differences, such as skin color and sexual orientation, but used her own identity against toxic black male masculinity. [79] She is quoted as saying: "What I leave behind has a life of its own. Belief in the superiority of one aspect of the mythical norm. [8] Lorde's difficult relationship with her mother figured prominently in her later poems, such as Coal's "Story Books on a Kitchen Table. "[40] Also, people must educate themselves about the oppression of others because expecting a marginalized group to educate the oppressors is the continuation of racist, patriarchal thought. Some Afro-German women, such as Ika Hgel-Marshall, had never met another black person and the meetings offered opportunities to express thoughts and feelings. They had two children together. [81] When designating her as such, then-governor Mario Cuomo said of Lorde, "Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of differencethose of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are olderknow that survival is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths, she wrote in The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House.. Here are some fascinating facts about the woman behind the work. '"[49] This theory is today known as intersectionality. University of Minnesota, "Audre Lorde, 58, A Poet, Memoirist And Lecturer, Dies", Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres, Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians, Amazones d'Hier, Lesbiennes d'Aujourd'hui, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Audre_Lorde&oldid=1141162773, American people of United States Virgin Islands descent, Columbia University School of Library Service alumni, Deaths from cancer in the United States Virgin Islands, Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Poetry winners, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 17:49. It meant being invisible. Login to add information, pictures and relationships, join in discussions and get credit for your contributions . [3] In an African naming ceremony before her death, she took the name Gamba Adisa, which means "Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known". [31] The documentary has received seven awards, including Winner of the Best Documentary Audience Award 2014 at the 15th Reelout Queer Film + Video Festival, the Gold Award for Best Documentary at the International Film Festival for Women, Social Issues, and Zero Discrimination, and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Barcelona International LGBT Film Festival. [11], Raised Catholic, Lorde attended parochial schools before moving on to Hunter College High School, a secondary school for intellectually gifted students. Utilizing the erotic as power allows women to use their knowledge and power to face the issues of racism, patriarchy, and our anti-erotic society. Mr. Rollins, 34, is an assistant vice president in commercial banking at the Bank of New. As seen in the film, she walks through the streets with pride despite stares and words of discouragement. In her novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Lorde focuses on how her many different identities shape her life and the different experiences she has because of them. She had two older sisters, Phyllis and Helen. Lorde earned her BA from Hunter College and MLS from Columbia University. Her father, Frederick Byron Lorde (known as Byron), hailed from Barbados and her mother, Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, was Grenadian and was born on the island of Carriacou. She included the Y to abide by her mother, but eventually dropped it when she got older. In 1962, she married attorney Edwin Rollins, a white gay man, and had two children, Elizabeth and Jonathan, with him. During this period, she worked as a public librarian in nearby Mount Vernon, New York. Lorde describes the inherent problems within society by saying, "racism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance. At the age of four, she learned to talk while she learned to read, and her mother taught her to write at around the same time. The couple had two children, Elizabeth and. She graduated in 1951. She was a librarian in the New York public schools throughout the 1960s. Lorde finds herself among some of these "deviant" groups in society, which set the tone for the status quo and what "not to be" in society. It was hard enough to be Black, to be Black and female, to be Black, female, and gay. Empowering people who are doing the work does not mean using privilege to overstep and overpower such groups; but rather, privilege must be used to hold door open for other allies. Through poems like Coal, essays like The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House, and memoirs like Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde became one of the mid-20th centurys most radically honest voices and important activists. She published her first book of poems in 1968. Nearsighted to the point of being legally blind and the youngest of three daughters (her two older sisters were named Phyllis and Helen), Lorde grew up hearing her mother's stories about the West Indies. "[2], As a child, Lorde struggled with communication, and came to appreciate the power of poetry as a form of expression. As she explained in the introduction, the book was both for herself and for other women of all ages, colors, and sexual identities who recognize that imposed silence about any area of our lives is a tool for separation and powerlessness. She wrote that I do not wish my anger and pain and fear about cancer to fossilize into yet another silence, nor to rob me of whatever strength can lie at the core of this experience, openly acknowledged and examined.. Lorde eventually became a librarian herself, earning a masters degree in library science from Columbia University in 1961. I've said this about poetry; I've said it about children. Piesche, Peggy (2015). Lordes cancer never fully disappeared, and in 1985, she learned it had metastasized to her liver. Audre Lorde (born Audrey Geraldine Lorde), was a Caribbean-American, lesbian activist, writer, poet, teacher and visionary. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Audrey Geraldine Lorde was born in Harlem on February 18, 1934, to parents who had emigrated from Grenada a decade earlier. In 1977, Lorde became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). In the same essay, she proclaimed, "now we must recognize difference among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others' difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles"[38] Doing so would lead to more inclusive and thus, more effective global feminist goals. They should do it as a method to connect everyone in their differences and similarities. [75], In 1962, Lorde married attorney Edwin Rollins, who was a white, gay man. [25] Together with a group of black women activists in Berlin, Audre Lorde coined the term "Afro-German" in 1984 and, consequently, gave rise to the Black movement in Germany. [14], In 1954, she spent a pivotal year as a student at the National University of Mexico, a period she described as a time of affirmation and renewal. On Thursday February 18, nearly 600 women and men gathered to celebrate the First Annual Professor Audre Lorde Memorial Birthday Celebration at Hunter College. She was an out lesbian, shortly marrying Edwin Rollins a gay man and having two children before beginning a relationship with Frances Clayton. Her mother, Linda Belmar Lorde, had Grenadian and Portuguese. Lorde inspired black women to refute the designation of "Mulatto", a label which was imposed on them, and switch to the newly coined, self-given "Afro-German", a term that conveyed a sense of pride. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years, 19841992 by Dagmar Schultz. Lorde married an attorney, Edwin Rollins, and had two children before they divorced in 1970. In October 1980, Lorde mentioned on the phone to fellow activist and author Barbara Smith that they really need to do something about publishing. That same month, Smith organized a meeting with Lorde and other women who might be interested in starting a publishing company specifically for women writers of color. Audre Lorde is a member of the following lists: LGBT rights activists from the United States, American poets and 1934 births. When she did see them, they were often cold or emotionally distant. Sexism, the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance. In this interview, Audre Lorde articulated hope for the next wave of feminist scholarship and discourse. She was a lesbian and navigated spaces interlocking her womanhood, gayness and blackness in ways that trumped white feminism, predominantly white gay spaces and toxic black male masculinity. [73], With such a strong ideology and open-mindedness, Lorde's impact on lesbian society is also significant. They visited Cuban poets Nancy Morejon and Nicolas Guillen. "[52] She explains how patriarchal society has misnamed it and used it against women, causing women to fear it. As an activist-author, she never shied away from difficult subjects. "[41] People are afraid of others' reactions for speaking, but mostly for demanding visibility, which is essential to live. Lorde herself stated that those interpretations were incorrect because identity was not so simply defined and her poems were not to be oversimplified. It wasnt the only time Lorde chose a name for herself. Lorde was also a professor of English at John Jay College and Hunter College, where she held the prestigious post of Thomas Hunter Chair of Literature. Ageism. The volume includes poems from both The First Cities and Cables to Rage, and it unites many of the themes Lorde would become known for throughout her career: her rage at racial injustice, her celebration of her black identity, and her call for an intersectional consideration of women's experiences. In 2001, Publishing Triangle instituted the Audre Lorde Award to honour works of lesbian poetry. Lorde emphasizes that "the transformation of silence into language and action is a self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger. Collectively they called for a "feminist politics of location, which theorized that women were subject to particular assemblies of oppression, and therefore that all women emerged with particular rather than generic identities". [16], In 1968 Lorde was writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi. Lorde lived with liver cancer for the next several years, and died from the disease on November 17, 1992, at age 58. [33]:31, Her conception of her many layers of selfhood is replicated in the multi-genres of her work. See the latest news and architecture related to Autonomous City Of Buenos Aires, only on ArchDaily. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions, she wrote in her 1980 paper Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, explaining that if the oppressors would educate themselves, the oppressed could divert their focus toward actionable solutions for bettering society. During this time, she confirmed her identity on personal and artistic levels as both a lesbian and a poet. Six years later, she found out her breast cancer had metastasized in her liver. The organization concentrates on community organizing and radical nonviolent activism around progressive issues within New York City, especially relating to LGBT communities, AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, prison reform, and organizing among youth of color. [9], In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), Lorde asserts the necessity of communicating the experience of marginalized groups to make their struggles visible in a repressive society. Together they founded several organizations such as the Che Lumumba School for Truth, Women's Coalition of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa, and Doc Loc Apiary. Lorde died of liver cancer at the age of 58 in 1992, in St. Croix, where she was living with her partner, black feminist scholar Gloria I. Joseph. [47], Her writings are based on the "theory of difference", the idea that the binary opposition between men and women is overly simplistic; although feminists have found it necessary to present the illusion of a solid, unified whole, the category of women itself is full of subdivisions.[48]. Women are expected to educate men. Lorde is also often credited with helping coin the term Afro-German, which Black German communities embraced as an inclusive form of self-definition and also as a way to connect them to the global African diaspora. The trip was sponsored by The Black Scholar and the Union of Cuban Writers. [9] She emphasizes the need for different groups of people (particularly white women and African-American women) to find common ground in their lived experience, but also to face difference directly, and use it as a source of strength rather than alienation. Lorde and Clayton lived together on Staten Island and were together for 21 years. Lorde used those identities within her work and used her own life to teach others the importance of being different. After their separation in the late 1960s, Lorde and her children lived with Frances Clayton, a white female . Elitism. Ed defended the indigent for many years as a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society and. She spoke on issues surrounding civil rights, feminism, and oppression. . Somewhere in that poem would be a line or a feeling I would be sharing. She felt she was not accepted because she "was both crazy and queer but [they thought] I would grow out of it all. "[73] According to scholar Anh Hua, Lorde turns female abjection menstruation, female sexuality, and female incest with the mother into powerful scenes of female relationship and connection, thus subverting patriarchal heterosexist culture. When ignoring a problem does not work, they are forced to either conform or destroy. Lorde and Rollins divorced in 1970. In 1984, at the invitation of German feminist Dagmar Schultz, Lorde taught a poetry course on Black American women poets at West Berlins Free University. She writes: "A fear of lesbians, or of being accused of being a lesbian, has led many Black women into testifying against themselves. [100], On April 29, 2022, the International Astronomical Union approved the name Lorde for a crater on Mercury. Lorde adds, "Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men. Audre Lorde called for the embracing of these differences. [53] Daly's reply letter to Lorde,[54] dated four months later, was found in 2003 in Lorde's files after she died. "[36], Lorde's poetry became more open and personal as she grew older and became more confident in her sexuality. She proposes that the Erotic needs to be explored and experienced wholeheartedly, because it exists not only in reference to sexuality and the sexual, but also as a feeling of enjoyment, love, and thrill that is felt towards any task or experience that satisfies women in their lives, be it reading a book or loving one's job. [26] During her many trips to Germany, Lorde became a mentor to a number of women, including May Ayim, Ika Hgel-Marshall, and Helga Emde. After decades of silence, Edwin Rollins, a white gay man, speaks openly for the first time about his seven-year marriage to Lorde, an unconventional union in which both husband and wife. "[80], From 1991 until her death, she was the New York State Poet laureate. [69] While they encouraged a global community of women, Audre Lorde, in particular, felt the cultural homogenization of third-world women could only lead to a disguised form of oppression with its own forms of "othering" (Other (philosophy)) women in developing nations into figures of deviance and non-actors in theories of their own development. [25], Lorde focused her discussion of difference not only on differences between groups of women but between conflicting differences within the individual. From 1991 until her death, she was the New York State Poet Laureate. Lorde's work on black feminism continues to be examined by scholars today. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Miriam Kraft summarized Lorde's position when reflecting on the interview; "Yes, we have different historical, social, and cultural backgrounds, different sexual orientations; different aspirations and visions; different skin colors and ages. As the description in its finding aid states "The collection includes Lorde's books, correspondence, poetry, prose, periodical contributions, manuscripts, diaries, journals, video and audio recordings, and a host of biographical and miscellaneous material. [29] Her impact on Germany reached more than just Afro-German women; Lorde helped increase awareness of intersectionality across racial and ethnic lines. Born a rebel, she never had easy relationship at home, developing friendship with a group of 'outcasts' at school. We must not let diversity be used to tear us apart from each other, nor from our communities that is the mistake they made about us. As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called powerful, melodic, and intense by the Poetry Foundation. In June 2019on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riotsthe New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized Lordes contributions to the LGBTQ+ community by naming the house an official historic landmark. "[98] Held at John F. Kennedy Institute of North American Studies at Free University of Berlin (Freie Universitt), the Audre Lorde Archive holds correspondence and teaching materials related to Lorde's teaching and visits to Freie University from 1984 to 1992. [51], Lorde set out to confront issues of racism in feminist thought. She spent very little time with her father and mother, who were both busy maintaining their real estate business in the tumultuous economy after the Great Depression. She explains that this is a major tool utilized by oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns. They discussed whether the Cuban revolution had truly changed racism and the status of lesbians and gays there. There are three specific ways Western European culture responds to human difference. I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. Many people fear to speak the truth because of the real risks of retaliation, but Lorde warns, "Your silence does not protect you." [4] Lorde insists that the fight between black women and men must end to end racist politics. Other feminist scholars of this period, like Chandra Talpade Mohanty, echoed Lorde's sentiments. Lorde's 1979 essay "Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface" is a sort of rallying cry to confront sexism in the black community in order to eradicate the violence within it. [87], In June 2019, Lorde was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. : LGBT rights activists from the article title the poet was diagnosed breast! Of lesbians and gays there her death, she confirmed her identity on personal artistic! Close ties with each other 's Power rather than use it without consent, which is abuse associate... 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Feeling, thats when I couldnt find the poems to express the things I feeling... Away from difficult subjects the trip was sponsored by the poetry Foundation the name Lorde for a on. Period, she confirmed her identity on personal and artistic levels as both a lesbian and a poet each,... From Hunter College and graduated in the late 1960s, Lorde 's identity theories ].