Happy Birthday, Audre Lorde

88 years ago today, Black lesbian poet, activist, and icon Audre Lorde was born, and the world has never been the same. Without Lorde, so much of the language we use online, in academia, and in the larger world of poetry, literature and activism would be lost: specifically the idea that a system’s injustices can’t be fixed or ameliorated from within the corrupt, broken system itself. In Lorde’s 1984 essay, “The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House,” she explained just that. She also was proud of her queer identity, once telling an interviewer that: “My sexuality is part and parcel of who I am, and my poetry comes from the intersection of me and my worlds.” Fighting for the systems that oppress queer folks and people of intersectional identities to be dismantled in favor of a better world. We’re still trying to do just that.

Audre Lorde was born February 18, 1934 in Harlem. pic.twitter.com/qMQEwf0BBq

— Haymarket Books (@haymarketbooks) February 18, 2022

She shares a birthday with another legendary Black writer, the late Toni Morrisson:

Today is Audre and Toni Day! ✨

Happy Birthday to Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) and Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019)! 🎈#blackwomenradicals pic.twitter.com/i85cxCTcsw

— Black Women Radicals (@blkwomenradical) February 18, 2022

Lorde also understood that the personal is political: especially the erotic:

“Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama.”
~Audre Lorde pic.twitter.com/2t3YgZ0t8L

— Keesha Gaskins-Nathan (@keeshagaskins) February 18, 2022

Another brilliant mind who left behind transformative work, the kind of the work that could remake the world if we weren’t so cowardly.

Happy Birthday, Ancestor Lorde!https://t.co/0dhi45VHvT

— Son of Baldwin (Robert Jones, Jr.) (@SonofBaldwin) February 18, 2022

Happy birthday to Audre Lorde (1934-1992) A self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” Audre Lorde work centered her personal experience in addressing injustices of racism, sexism, and classism. #CiteBlackWomen pic.twitter.com/hukzB31USw

— Cite Black Women. (@citeblackwomen) February 18, 2022

happiest of birthdays to our collective ancestors: Audre Lorde (Feb. 18, 1934 – Nov. 17, 1992) and Toni Morrison (Feb. 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019). they have contributed so much to our artistic & radical Black movements & have left a lasting impact on myself. pic.twitter.com/KJ4QwqIsCR

— Walela Nadira Genevieve Nehanda (@itswalela) February 18, 2022

✨”Who I am is what fulfills me and what fulfills the vision I have of a world.” ✨ #AudreLorde ✨ Born on this day in 1934 pic.twitter.com/qrUSbwWogS

— Well-Read Black Girl ™ (@wellreadblkgirl) February 18, 2022

Ruth Wilson Gilmore on Audre Lorde’s “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.”

“…focus on tools requires us to concentrate on fundamental orderings in political economy. If the master loses control of the means of production, he is no longer the master.” pic.twitter.com/g7el7BvBMp

— tamara k. nopper (@tamaranopper) February 18, 2022