Audre Lorde Notecards

Queer Black poet, theorist, mother and activist Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was an intersectional feminist decades before the term was coined. Writing through both an emotional and an intellectual lens on racism, sexuality, class, and sexism, she redefined "the personal is political" during a time in which the phrase was primarily used by white, upper-middle-class feminists. After being diagnosed with, and overcoming, breast cancer in 1978, Lorde's poetry and prose took on the additional identity of cancer survivor, as relayed in The Cancer Journals (1980) and essay collection Sister Outsider (1984). As Lorde's identity grew more radical and her writing increasingly popular, she presented at various conferences, speaking truth to power through lectures such as "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" in 1977 and the "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" in 1979.