On Tuesday, February 18th, the SUNY Old Westbury Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Center held a birthday celebration for the late Audre Lorde on what would’ve been her 91st birthday. Lorde, who described herself as a “Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet,” was born in 1934 in Harlem to Caribbean immigrant parents. During her life, she published multiple works of poetry and feminist theory from an intersectional perspective. She was also a social justice activist who worked to make the world a more just and liberatory place.

Lorde’s powerful words have become part of the cultural language of racial and gender justice. Her quotes, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” “Revolution is not a one-time event,” and “Your silence will not protect you.” appear on protest signs and posters throughout the world, not always with attribution. The WGSS Center celebration was a chance to get to know the woman behind the words.

While WGSS Center volunteer Alyssandra Membreno shared a presentation with some details about Lorde’s life and her path to poetry and intersectional activism, guests enjoyed unicorn mini-cupcakes, chosen in honor of her book of poetry titled The Black Unicorn.

After the presentation, guests took turns reading from the books and printouts of Lorde’s words provided by the WGSS Center adviser, Dr. Jill Crocker. One reader quoted her famous passage on self-care from A Burst of Light, her chronicle of living with terminal liver cancer and her experiences with a racist and sexist medical system, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Another reader shared passages from an open letter Lorde wrote to a white feminist academic, Mary Daly, addressing Daly’s racism and erasure of the work of Black feminist academics. These were just two of the many examples of Lorde’s unflinching ability to confront bigotry and oppression head-on.

Then, the guests were invited to collage birthday cards for Audre Lorde, using images of her, as well as her own words and other craft material. People were encouraged to “get creative” with their cards, and many of the finished products showed that they did just that.

WGSS Center intern Ari Arquer, a senior majoring in sociology and minoring in social work, said that while she had read some of Lorde’s quotes before, but she “really learned who [Lorde was] and where she came from and what she stood for” at the event. When asked if she would follow through on Dr. Crocker’s directive to read more Audre Lorde on their own, she answered that she would, especially because Lorde’s family was from the same home country, Grenada, as Arquer and there isn’t a lot of West Indian representation among writers.

A quote that stood out to Arquer was “When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent, we are still afraid, so it is better to speak.” Arquer appreciated that Lorde’s feminism addressed the “structural inequalities in our institutions” and felt that SUNY Old Westbury should do more programming honoring people who made an impact with their work, especially during Black History Month.

This birthday celebration was a fun, low-stress way to learn about an important figure in multiple movements to end oppression, focusing on her own words and experiences to get to know her as more than just quotes on whiteboards and stickers. As Audre Lorde herself said, “This is how I learned that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.”