Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a trailblazing writer, intersectional feminist and civil rights activist. Her works include Sister Outsider, which is still considered an important text for Black studies, women’s studies and queer theory, and The Cancer Journals, which details her experiences with breast cancer and her mastectomy.

‘Protect Medicaid Vigil’ Shows The Power of Grief in an Era of Cruelty

PUBLISHED 8/6/2025 by | UPDATED 8/14/2025 at 7:30 A.M. PT

Late last month, a 60-hour “Protect Medicaid Vigil” took place on the National Mall across from the Capitol. Featuring live music, speakers and a collaborative art table, it was a space for collective grief, anger, joy and hope in response to steep Medicaid cuts in the recently enacted Republican spending package.

The event was organized by Caring Across Generations, a national organization of family caregivers, care workers, disabled people and aging adults advocating for social and political change. It spanned 60 hours to represent each year of the Medicaid program to-date. During the vigil, Caring Across Generations lit 8,000 candles as a visual representation of the nearly 80 million Americans who rely on Medicaid coverage for healthcare.

Feminist thought-leaders, including Audre Lorde and Judith Butler, have theorized that emotions (particularly grief and anger) are essential to any successful social movement. By holding a vigil followed by a joyful day of action, Caring Across Generations and its partners showed how emotion can fuel and sustain activism under Trump.

National Poetry Month: “Vagina” Sonnet and Other Poems That Drove Feminism

PUBLISHED 4/1/2012 by

In her introduction to Poems from the Women’s Movement, Honor Moore recollects a friend saying, “The women’s movement was poetry.” The women’s movement was–and is–many things, and poetry was–and is–a necessary part of it. During the 1970s, poetry provided a way for women to find their voices and validate their experiences. Poetry enabled feminists to […]

Black Herstory: The Founders of the Feminist Party

PUBLISHED 2/9/2012 by

It never ceases to amaze me how many students in my women’s studies classes have never heard the names Flo Kennedy, Pauli Murray and Shirley Chisholm (left), all Black women. Yet they “might have heard” of Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and a white woman, thus suggesting that Black feminist founders of the movement have been written out of feminist history.

How Audre Lorde Made Queer History

PUBLISHED 10/31/2011 by

In her piece “Breast Cancer: Power vs. Prosthesis” in The Cancer Journals, black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde wrote: “I also began to feel that in the process of losing a breast I had become a whole person.” This courageous insight and numerous others—about her mind, body and spirit being sites loaded with meaning, […]

Ms. Readers’ 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time: The Top 10 and the Complete List!

PUBLISHED 10/10/2011 by

Scholar, activist, provocateur, teacher, community-builder, inspiration: No one word can span the career of bell hooks or capture how much we love her work. According to Ms. readers’ selections of the best feminist non-fiction of all time, she’s your favorite writer, with three books in our top ten–including number one–and a total of seven books […]

Top 100 Feminist Non-Fiction Countdown: 50-41

PUBLISHED 10/5/2011 by

Within books 50 to 41, you’ll find several controversial takes on motherhood and many a memoir, including a reflection on the personal impact of breast cancer, a graphic autobiography from a dyke to watch out for and some gutsy revelations from a Nation columnist. You’ll also see a satire of how the patriarchy tries to dampen […]

Scapegoating Black Women in a Recession

PUBLISHED 8/25/2011 by

You know the media spin cycle and the propagandists are winning when you advise a young, promising black woman undergraduate student about her prospects for doctoral studies, and she immediately takes herself out of the running. Not because there are fewer fellowships to help pay for graduate school or because she wants to pursue a […]