Includes bibliographical references.

"Easily summarized by her officially recognized merits as a poet and activist, AUDRE LORDE's life story can also be told according to her work in the classroom, which spanned two decades at various institutions such as Tougaloo College, City College of New York, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Hunter College and the Free University of Berlin. From her birth in 1934 in Harlem, New York, to her death at age 58 on the Caribbean island of St. Croix, Lorde practiced a lifelong commitment to self-study, gradually knitting together the facts of who she was as a Black woman and a lesbian, to craft a loving and complicated self-image in response to the burden of historical repression and erasure. This self-making process formed the core of her teaching, activating students to find new ways to become participants in their own formation as historical subjects."--Publisher's website (viewed 2018 June 18).