PROGRAM

Please join us at Roosevelt House as we commemorate the life and legacy of the late Audre Lorde, marking what would have been her 85th birthday this month. Lorde was the first African American and first woman poet laureate of New York, appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo. This evening of tribute and recollection will include a panel discussion and poetry readings featuring many who were close to Lorde and were influenced by her: Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Hunter and the Graduate Center; poet Cheryl Clarke, an administrator and teacher at Rutgers for more than 40 years, and founder of the school’s Office of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian-Gay Concerns; Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies, John Jay and the Graduate Center; Donna Masini, Professor of English at Hunter; and Meagan Washington, poet, adjunct professor of literature and composition, Hunter. Moderator: Daniel Hurewitz, Associate Professor of History at Hunter.

Lorde, one of Hunter’s most distinguished alumni, attended the college from 1954-1959, studying Library Science, and earning a Master’s degree in that subject from Columbia University in 1961. At Columbia, she met Edwin Rollins, whom she married in 1962. Their wedding reception took place at Roosevelt House. In 1981, Lorde accepted the Distinguished Thomas Hunter Chair and taught at Hunter until 1986. Lorde also taught in the Department of English; today an annual prize for undergraduate excellence in poetry and prose is named in her honor. Lorde was a mentor at the Audre Lorde Women’s Poetry Center, housed at Roosevelt House in the 1980s-90s prior to its renovation.

The event — cosponsored by the LGBTQ Center at Roosevelt House, the History, English, Women and Gender Studies departments, and the PhenomenalWomen@RH program — is part of Hunter’s ongoing celebration of Black History Month, and is the first in a series commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.