SPEAKER_00: Before we get started with today's episode, I want to let you know that there will be mentions of domestic and sexual abuse. Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Wamanica. All month, we're celebrating Pride. Today, we're talking about a resilient and beautifully haunting poet known for her quick wit and feminist visceral writing. This black lesbian poet often wrote about love, intimacy, and liberation. Let's talk about Pat Parker. Pat Parker was born Patricia Cooks on January 20, 1944 in Houston, Texas. Pat grew up in a low-income working-class family. Later in life, Pat described her family in Houston as Texas hell, survivors of soul-searing poverty. Survivors of small-town mentality. Pat had a difficult start in life. As a child, she was sexually assaulted by a stranger. Then in 1962, Pat's uncle died in police custody. The same year as a young boy was murdered by a group of people in her community for being gay. Being both black and queer in Texas was incredibly unsafe. It was too painful for Pat to stay in the state. So that same year, she graduated from high school and left to study at a community college in Los Angeles. When Pat moved to California, she started dating playwright and Black Panther Minister of Culture Ed Bolins. The couple married that same year. Their marriage was extremely violent. While Pat was pregnant with their child, Ed pushed Pat down a flight of stairs leading to a miscarriage. In 1964, Pat and Ed moved north to the San Francisco Bay Area. Ed was becoming increasingly violent. Finally, in 1966, they divorced. That same year, Pat remarried, this time to writer Robert F. Parker. The union didn't last long. They got divorced that same year. It was after the second divorce that Pat realized that the idea of marriage wasn't working for her. She began to engage in the radical politics of her day. She became increasingly active in the Black Panther Party and started to soak up socialist and communist literature and theory. Her political radicalization went hand in hand with the development of her writing career. By the late 1960s, Pat was living openly as a lesbian and was engaging in activism in women's rights, civil rights, and gay rights. She was also teaching creative writing workshops and writing poetry. In 1969, Pat met and became good friends with Audre Lorde. They connected as Black lesbian writers and mothers who sought liberation from oppression and pain. Pat and Audre's friendship was an inspiration to both. Pat wrote a poem titled, For Audre and Her 1978 Collection, Movement in Black, articulating their sister love. And Audre Lorde's essay, Eye to Eye, was inspired by her friendship with Pat. It talks about the enduring strength and tradition of Black women in sisterhood. The 1970s was an incredibly creative decade for Pat. From 1972 to 1978, she published four powerful collections of poetry. Her works often delved into women loving other women, liberation, and sometimes extreme violence. One of Pat's most deeply powerful and heart-shattering works is The Woman's Slaughter Collection, where she writes about her sister, the quiet Shirley Jones, who was murdered by her ex-husband. Pat's devotion to women's rights and liberation showed in her work. She wrote of the deeply personal, political, and social vulnerabilities of Black women. In 1978, Pat became the director of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center. In 1980, she founded the Black Women's Revolutionary Council, with the mission to educate and instill awareness of racism and sexism. She also helped to found the Women's Press Collective. In 1985, Pat traveled to Ghana and Kenya with the United Nations. She then testified at the UN regarding the state of women around the globe. Three years later, in 1988, Pat retired from work due to her terminal breast cancer. She passed away the next year, on June 19, 1989, at the age of 45. Pat Parker worked tirelessly for herself and for other women, to live lives free from oppression. Her commitment to feminism, civil, and queer rights were deliberate acts of revolution. She found strength through immense political and social vulnerability. All month, we're talking about iconic queer women. For more on why we're doing what we're doing, check out our newsletter, Womanika Weekly. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Encyclopedia Womanika. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. As always, we'll be taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you on Monday! Before you go, I want to tell you about another show I think you might like. By the 1990s, Toronto's gay community already had its coming out. The rash of violent, unsolved killings of the 1970s and 1980s were fading from the headlines. But for transgender women, who knew what it meant to be over-policed yet under-protected, a history of violence was repeating itself. Sex workers, in particular, found themselves vulnerable and ignored. The Village, from CBC Podcasts, returns to explore the stories of two women, Elora Wells and Cassandra Doe, whose deaths remain unexplained and unsolved. Listen to The Village wherever you get your podcasts.
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