{"id":13231,"date":"2025-03-24T11:25:50","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/?p=13231"},"modified":"2025-03-24T11:25:50","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:25:50","slug":"audre-lorde-feminist-activist-librarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.library.depaul.press\/full-text\/2025\/03\/24\/audre-lorde-feminist-activist-librarian\/","title":{"rendered":"Audre Lorde: Feminist, Activist, Librarian"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Book<\/a>“Women are powerful and dangerous.” Audre Lorde stands, glasses in hand, next to a chalkboard with this message scrawled across it. It’s a befitting photo<\/a> for a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Lorde was also an essayist, autobiographer, feminist, activist, and librarian. An inspiration to librarians for decades, it is apt we honor her this month.<\/p>\n

A true intersectional feminist, she dedicated her life to combating sexism, racism, and homophobia. “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984) collected Lorde’s nonfiction prose and has become a canonical text in Black studies, women’s studies, and queer theory” (Poetry Foundation).<\/p>\n

Like many of you, she attended Catholic school before attending a public high school for intellectually gifted students. She started writing poetry in high school. One of her poems was “rejected for a class assignment” so “she submitted it to Seventeen <\/i>magazine, and it became her first professional publication” (The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture).<\/p>\n

\"Book<\/a>She eventually went on to earn her master’s in library science at Columbia University in 1961 and worked as a librarian throughout the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lorde published magazine articles and anthologies while taking an active role in the civil rights, antiwar, and women’s movements. In 1977, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Feeling isolated due to the dearth of publications by black, lesbian women, she wrote “The Cancer Journals” in 1980. She was the poet laureate of New York<\/a> from 1991-1992 and died from cancer on November 17th, 1992.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Audre Lorde and other women who have shaped history, please visit the DePaul University Library’s online and print collections<\/a>, look over our gender and sexuality databases<\/a>, and chat with our librarians at the research help desk<\/a>, over the phone<\/a>, or online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, Women’s History Month does not end appropriately with reflection alone. It is an annual call to action to further advance women’s rights in the here and now and for future generations; not just for cis women but for all women, including nonbinary and trans women. With the final week of Women’s History Month upon us, we encourage you to commit to at least one act, big or small, that advances gender equity, because “Here, We Do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Women are powerful and dangerous.” Audre Lorde stands, glasses in hand, next to a chalkboard with this message scrawled across it. It’s a befitting photo for a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Lorde was also an essayist, autobiographer, feminist, activist, and librarian. An inspiration to librarians for decades, it is apt we honor her <\/p>\n

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