James Baldwin and Audre Lorde
A writer and social critic, Baldwin is perhaps best known for his 1955 collection essays, "Notes of a Native Son," and his ground-breaking 1956 novel, "Giovanni's Room," Which depicts themes of homosexuality and bisexuality. The novel stood out among literary critics because it features all white characters, unlink the civil rights activist's other novels which centre the experiences of black people. Baldwin spend a majority of his literary and activist career educating others about black and queer identity, as he did his famous lecture titled "Race, Racism, and the Gay Community2 at a meeting of the New York chapter of Black and White Men Together (now known as Men of All Colours Together) in 1982.
Audre Lorde (1934 - 1992)
Lorde, a self-described "black, lesbian, feminist, mother, poet, warrior," made lasting contributions in the fields of feminist theory, critical race studies and queer theory through her pedagogy and writing. Among her most notable works are "Coal" (1976), "The Black Unicorn" (1978), "The Cancer Journals" (1980) and "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name" (1982). "I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't," Lorde once said.
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