Audre Lorde: Google honors American poet, civil rights activist, feminist on 87th birthday

Happy Birthday Audre Lorde!!!

Google today dedicates a good-looking doodle to Audre Lorde on her 87th birthday. She was an American writer, feminist, librarian, and civil rights activist.

Audre Lorde was born on February 18, 1934 in New York City to Caribbean immigrants. Her mother was of mixed ancestry but could 'pass' for 'Spanish', which was a source of pride for her family. She spent very little time with her father and mother, who were both busy maintaining their real estate business. Her relationship with her parents was difficult from a young age.

Originally named Audrey Geraldine Lorde, Audre Lorde described herself as thinking in poetry. Around the age of 12, she began writing her own poetry and connecting with others at her school who were considered 'outcasts', as she felt she was.

A precocious student, she became the first Black student at Hunter High School, a public school for gifted girls. Her 1951 love poem 'Spring' was rejected as unsuitable by the school's literary journal, but was printed by Seventeen magazine when she was just 15 — making it her first published poem.

Audre Lorde spent extensive time in West Germany between 1984 and 1992 teaching poetry at the Free University in Berlin and organizing the local feminist movement. While in Germany, she led numerous lectures and workshops on feminism, homophobia, classism, and racism. She also connected and mentored Black German women, encouraging them to define and own their identities; Lorde's guidance was influential in sparking the Afro-German movement of the '80s.

In 1981, Audre Lorde was among the founders of the Women's Coalition of St. Croix, an organization dedicated to assisting women who have survived sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. In the late 1980s, she also helped establish Sisterhood in Support of Sisters (SISA) in South Africa to benefit Black women who were affected by apartheid and other forms of injustice.

Audre Lorde's impact on the Afro-German movement was the focus of the 2012 documentary by Dagmar Schultz. Audre Lorde: The Berlin Years 1984–1992 was accepted by the Berlin Film Festival, Berlinale, and had its World Premiere at the 62nd Annual Festival in 2012. She focused her discussion of difference not only on differences between groups of women but between conflicting differences within the individual.

Lorde was awarded the American Book Award in 1989. She was later honored as the poet laureate of New York State through the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit in 1991. She died on November 17, 1992 at the age of 58.

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