She was an outsider among other Black women, with her Afro and different style of dress. She simultaneously maintained lesbian and bisexual identities, being neither butch nor femme. With a new fervor, Lorde explored her sexuality. Lorde graduated from Hunter College, attended Columbia University, and found work as a librarian. For the first time, she found a sense of herself as belonging, and in 1954 she returned to New York with a new voice.
#Edwin rollins skin#
She experienced a more fluid racial identity, due to her skin complexion. She lived as an out lesbian amongst expatriates, including other lesbian leftists. There she discovered a temporary sense of “home” and belonging inMexico. Needing an escape from the strong anti-communist sentiment of the McCarthy era, Lorde left for Mexico. That same year her father died from a stroke. Again, she was an outsider among homophobic leftists.
#Edwin rollins trial#
In 1953, Lorde became greatly politicized by the trial and subsequent execution of a friend’s parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. However, she found it difficult to merge these worlds, not having gained a strong sense of her place in them. She found an opportunity for literary expression at the Harlem Writers Guild. She surrounded herself with leftist thinkers and lesbian friends. Her homo-erotic feelings began to emerge during her teenage years, through various crushes on female peers and teachers.Īfter graduation from high school, Lorde left her parents’ home and attended Hunter College. Yet, she found sisterhood among a small group of friends who also wrote poetry. During high school, Lorde became more acutely aware of racial difference. As the first Black student at Hunter High School, a public school for intellectually gifted girls, she worked on the school newspaper and published her first poem, “Spring, ” in Seventeen Magazine in 1951. She was inspired by poets such as Keats, Edna St. Lorde began writing poetry at age twelve. These factors along with her Caribbean mother’s musings of “home” being elsewhere began to stir feelings of not belonging. The darkest child of a disciplinarian mother who could pass as white, she was the most headstrong of the three sisters. Lorde was awkward as a child, being nearly blind and chubby. She was the third child born to Linda Belmar Lorde and Frederick Byron Lorde. Her mother was from Barbados and her father from Carriacou in the Grenadines. Lorde was born in Depression-era Harlem on February 18, 1934. Her work created spaces for uncomfortable conversations on issues of racism, sexism, sexuality and class. She was deeply involved with several social justice movements in the United States. Croix a son, Jonathan Rollins, and a daughter, Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins, both of New York City, and four sisters, Helen Lorde, Phyllis Blackwell and Marjorie and Mavis Jones.Audre Lorde (born Audrey Geraldine Lorde), was a Caribbean-American, lesbian activist, writer, poet, teacher and visionary. She is survived by her companion, Gloria I. Her marriage to Edwin Rollins ended in divorce. She was an outspoken lesbian and served on the board of the Feminist Press in New York City and often gave readings of her works at Judith's Room, a feminist bookstore in Greenwich Village.Īmong her honors were the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit in 1991, making her the poet laureate of New York the Manhattan Borough President's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1988, and honorary doctorates from Hunter, Oberlin and Haverford Colleges.
She was active in many literary and political organizations and a founding member of Women of Color Press and Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa. She became an English professor at Hunter and lectured widely throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. Lorde, who also used her adopted African name, Gamba Adisa, was born in Manhattan and graduated from Hunter College and the Columbia University School of Library Science.
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