Introducing The Audre Lorde Forum

On the 80th anniversary of the birth of the amazing Audre Lorde, The Feminist Wire is launching The Audre Lorde Forum, a "global (US, Europe, and the Caribbean) two-week forum to celebrate Sister Lorde’s life and living legacy, which continuously touches hundreds of thousands of people around the world." This forum will feature "meditations, critical essays, sermons, personal reflections, poetry, love notes, and videos by a wide range of diverse people The contributors range in age from their early 20s to their early 80s." More:

We are straight, gay, lesbian, bi, cis, trans, feminine, masculine, Black American, Black European, Black Caribbean, Asian African European, white American, and/or white European. I haven’t even addressed spiritual/religious traditions. Many of the contributors knew Sister Lorde personally, while others only recently encountered her within the past year through her written and spoken words. The two “Feminists We Love” we will feature in this celebratory forum will be intimate video interviews with Sister Lorde’s daughter, Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins, M.D., (February 21, 2014), and her partner in the latter years of her life, Gloria I. Joseph, Ph.D., (February 28, 2014). As diverse as this global collective of over 40 individuals is, we’re not as diverse as we could be. In her own physical lifetime and twenty-two years as a beloved and cherished ancestor, Sister Lorde’s imprint is far reaching. TFW is only able to touch the tip of a huge surface that covers so many diverse individuals from around the world. Writing as the organizer and lead editor of this forum, I can attest at 3:02 a.m. this February 18, 2014 morning, that we’ve intentionally stretched ourselves as far as we can go while simultaneously carrying out the invisible feminist labor whose currencies are non-attached love and compassionately radical, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic social change.

So far, the site has already posted a beautiful prologue, and pieces called "The Reception of Audre Lorde – The Berlin Years 1984 to 1992 – Voices From Around The World," by documentarian Dagmar Schultz, and "Medicines for Our Survival: The Continuation of the Life of Audre Lorde," by M. Jacqui Alexander. We look forward to all of it.