Poet and author Audre Lorde used her writing to shine light on her experience of the world as a Black lesbian woman and later, as a mother and person suffering from cancer. A prominent member of the women’s and LGBTQ rights movements, her writings called attention to the multifaceted nature of identity and the ways in which people from different walks of life could grow stronger together.
Audrey Geraldine Lorde was born on February 18, 1934 to Frederic and Linda Belmar Lorde, immigrants from Grenada. She was the youngest of three sisters and grew up in Manhattan. As a child, Lorde dropped the “y” from her first name to become Audre.
Lorde connected with poetry from a young age. She once commented, “I used to speak in poetry...when I couldn’t find the poems to express the things I was feeling, that’s what started me writing poetry.” She was around 12 or 13 at the time. She graduated from Hunter High School, where she edited the literary magazine. After an English teacher rejected one of her poems, Lorde submitted it to Seventeen magazine – it became her first professional publication. [...]
Lorde continued writing prolifically through the 1970s and 1980s, exploring the intersections of race, gender, and class, as well as examining her own identity within a global context. Her 1978 collection, The Black Unicorn, was inspired by a trip to Benin with her children. In it, she drew strength from a spiritual connection with the goddesses of African mythology. In 1982, Lorde released what she coined a “biomythography”: Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Combining elements of history, biography, and myth, it told of Lorde’s journey of self-discovery and acceptance as a Black lesbian in her childhood and young adult years. Lorde’s 1984 collection, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, included her canonical essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” which called on feminists to acknowledge the many differences among women and to utilize them as a source of power rather than one of division. Continue reading from National Women's History Museum