Audre Lorde described herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. She was a pioneer of intersectional feminism and her work focused on confronting and addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Lorde was born in 1934 in New York City to West Indian parents. She grew up hearing her mother’s stories about the West Indies and her mother taught her to read and write at a young age. Lorde struggled to communicate and used poetry she had memorised in general conversation, if asked how she felt she would recite a poem. She attended Catholic school and while in the eighth grade, she wrote her first poem which appeared in Seventeen magazine. Poetry helped her to connect with others, and she made friends with others who were considered “outcasts”.
After high school, Lorde spent a year at the National University of Mexico, where she confirmed her identity on personal and artistic levels as a lesbian and poet. On her return to New York, she enrolled at Hunter College and became a part of the gay culture of Greenwich Village. She supported herself by working as a librarian and in 1959, after graduating with a BA she attended Columbia University where she earned an MA in library science. In 1962 she married attorney Edwin Rollins, they divorced after 8 years and two children.
From 1966 to 1968 Lorde was head librarian at Town School Library in New York City. After this she became the writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she discovered a love of teaching and witnessed first-hand the deep racial tensions in the South. That same year, her first volume of poems, The First Cities were published, dealing mostly with her personal issues and feelings. While at Tougaloo College she led workshops with young, black undergraduate students who were keen to discuss civil rights issues. Her book of poems, Cables to Rage (1970) were inspired by these experiences. Lorde also met her long term partner, Frances Clayton while in Tougaloo.
In 1972, From a Land Where Other People Live was published and nominated for a National Book Award. The book explored Lorde’s struggles with identity and anger at social injustice. Her poetry deals with anger, loneliness and injustice as well as what it means to be an African-American woman, mother, friend, and lover. Two years later, her most political work, New York Head Shop and Museum was published. She presented a view of her New York, stricken with poverty and neglect, begging for political action. In 1976, Lorde began to draw a larger audience with the release of her collection of poems entitled Coal. The book established Lorde as an influential voice in the Black Arts Movement and deals with many of the themes she would be known for including: rage at racial injustice, a celebration of her black identity, and the call for an intersectional consideration of women’s experiences.
In 1978, her highly acclaimed volume The Black Unicorn was published, further increasing her influence. The Black Unicorn explored her African heritage and is considered one of her greatest works. Lorde continued to write and publish poetry. After a diagnosis of breast cancer, she wrote The Cancer Journals (1980) which detailed her experience and her refusal to become a victim of the disease, instead calling herself a warrior. The Journals won the Gay Caucus Book of the Year award in 1981. A year later, in 1982 her “biomythography,” Zami: A New Spelling of My Name was published, chronicling her childhood into adulthood, developing her own personal narrative through the evolution of her sexual and self-awareness.
In the 1980’s Lorde co-founded the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press with Barbara Smith and Cherríe Moraga. It was the first U.S. publisher for women of colour and was dedicated to furthering the writings of black feminists. Lorde was a champion of intersectional feminism and was a vocal opponent of the issues of racism in feminist thought. She stated that many white feminists neglected racial issues, and ignored the built-in privilege afforded them by the colour of their skin. She felt that many white feminists were only interested in their own experiences, dismissing issues with race, class, age, gender and sexuality that did not apply to them. She pioneered the concept that that racism, sexism and homophobia were linked in that they stemmed from people’s inability to recognise or tolerate difference. Lorde was also a founding member of Sisters in Support of Sisters in South Africa, an organisation that worked to raise concerns about women under apartheid.
Lorde was the poet laureate of New York from 1991 until her death in 1992. She was a powerful essayist and writer, known for her poems and essays on civil rights issues, feminism, and the expression of black female identity. Her poems displayed technical mastery and emotional expression, particularly those which express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. She received numerous accolades, including an American Book Award for A Burst of Life in 1989.
In 1994, The Audre Lorde Project was founded in Brooklyn. The organisation concentrates on community organising and radical nonviolent activism around progressive issues within New York City, especially relating to queer and transgender communities, AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, prison reform and organising among youth of colour. In 2001, the Audre Lorde Award, an annual literary award presented by Publishing Triangle began. The award honours works of lesbian poetry. In 2014 Lorde was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago, Illinois which celebrates LGBT history and people.