Sisterhood and the Many Identities of Pat Parker

Sisterhood (sis·ter·hood)

/ˈsistərˌho͝od/ noun

the relationship between sisters, or
an association, society, or community of women linked by a common interest, religion, or trade.

The amplifier for April embodied this term. Pat Parker was a lesbian feminist and activist who used her experiences to amplify Black Women’s Voices, creating safe spaces for women to flourish. She was a survivor of violence, a liberator, a sister, a lover, and an activist, who fought for equality for people of color, the LGBT community, and victims of domestic violence. Her life and writings focused on her personal experiences with intersecting identities.

But who exactly was Pat Parker?

In this edition of Amplify, we will look at some of the many identities of Activist Pat Parker.

Pat Parker was born in Houston, Texas, on January 20, 1944 (as Patricia Cooks), to a father who retreaded tires and a mother who was a domestic worker. Pat grew up in the two Historical Black neighborhoods, the Third Ward and Sunnyside. Born into poverty and the youngest of four daughters, her parents, especially her father, pushed her to achieve as much as she could, even if that meant leaving her hometown behind. Pat moved to California after graduating from high school in 1962, attending both Los Angeles City College and San Francisco State College. During the mid-1960s, Pat became heavily involved in political activism, working in the Black Panther party by using her voice to showcase the experiences of the Black community. Parker also met and married her first husband, playwright and Black Panther member Ed Bullins, at age eighteen in 1962. Bullins was physically abusive, and Parker used writing as an escape. They divorced in 1966, and she later married writer and publisher Robert F. Parker, whom she also divorced. After realizing marriage wasn’t for her and that she wanted to be her true authentic self, she began to identify as a lesbian and fell in love. She expressed herself in her poem “My Lover is a Woman.” The poem explores what it was like for her to be in an interracial lesbian relationship, a relationship that inherently combined racism, poverty, and prejudice faced by the LGBT community.

An Author

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Pat Parker is the first and most influential African American working-class poet of the post-Stonewall generation. Her writings came from her experience as a Black Lesbian who had been through struggles of sexual violence, poverty, and loss. Her famous poetry book, Child of Myself, was dedicated to her father; it takes us down memory lane, with Parker reciting her life from birth to adulthood and her liberation in the 1960s. Her autobiographical poem “Goat Child,” from The Complete Works of Pat Parker, explores her complex relationship with her mother. She talks about her feelings of abandonment by her mother, and embracing true identity in adulthood, all while reeling and healing from past trauma.

Parker’s poetry touched on topics that were taboo in many spaces:

Issues on class and race
Sexism and gender
Black trauma
The intersection of feminism and gay liberation
Domestic violence and murder
Abortion and motherhood
Alcoholism

As an author, Parker spoke about all aspects of her identity and included issues she and other queer women of color faced. She made sure to use African American colloquialism in her poetry, while speaking about issues affecting the Black community.

Around 1969, Pat Parker met with Audre Lorde, another famous Black Feminist Lesbian writer. Lorde described Parker’s poetry as “clean and sharp without ever being neat.” The same can be said about Parker herself, a poet who never shied away from controversial issues. She refused to sit idle. Parker knew her lived experiences were not unique—she chose to write and advocate for those in similar situations, no matter the difficulties.

An Organizer and Activist

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Like her writing, Parker was political. She participated in civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements, and she spoke out against the Vietnam War. In 1969, Parker moved to San Francisco and became more active in politics. She worked as a medical coordinator for the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Oakland (from 1978 to 1988), and helped to expand the center. Parker founded the Black Women’s Revolutionary Council in 1980 and helped to establish the Women’s Press Collective with other Black Lesbian Poets.

As an activist, Parker worked with various gay and lesbian organizations, advocating for better policies and anti-discrimination laws. She worked with the UN in Kenya and Ghana, speaking about domestic violence against women.

A Speaker, Storyteller, and Sister

Click here to be redirected to a video of Pat Parker and Audre Lorde reading from their works.

Parker, along with poets and musicians like Judy Grahn and Linda Tillery, developed a community focused on lesbian poetry, sharing her experiences alongside other women. She wanted women around her to be seen. Parker was a part of the literature scene the moment she arrived in California. She gave her first public poetry reading in 1963 in Oakland and even began reading poetry to women groups in bookstores and at feminist events. Her readings in the mid-1970s were somewhat different from her earlier readings, in that she focused more on the experiences of Black Women and queer women of color. Traditionally, the scene had been dominated by white, heterosexual men. Parker wanted to create a safe space where women, Black women, and Black queer women could speak and not be ostracized. Parker wanted the collective to signify sisterhood, a place where women knew that they weren’t alone and that they shared similar experiences.

As a speaker and storyteller, Parker emphasized the use of oral performances. She wanted her audience to hear and see her—the real her. Parker wanted to articulate her viewpoint of each community she was a part of, so she spoke, reciting her poems so that the audience could visualize and experience every word.

As mentioned above, Parker was a survivor of abuse, and her sister, Shirley, was a murder victim of partner violence by her husband. Parker wrote the autobiographical poem, “Womanslaughter,” which she read in 1976 in Brussels at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women. She dedicated that poem to her sister and women who experienced domestic violence. Parker wanted to shed light on abuse against women, and let other women know that they were not alone.

Why We Amplify

Parker was a lesbian feminist who embraced every part of herself and created a sisterhood and safe space for other women to do so as well. She was an inspiration to many women; she hoped that speaking out and expressing oneself through poetry would not only free these women, but would also allow them to know they weren’t alone. Pat Parker wasn’t looking for validation. Instead, she wanted to build a community, a sisterhood for women. Parker never tried to fit into society. She had liberated herself and wanted others to do the same. Pat Parker was a Black Lesbian Feminist pioneer who spoke her mind, radicalized traditional poetry, and embraced her identity.

She continued working with the Feminist Women’s Health Center until she became sick in 1988. Pat Parker died of breast cancer on June 19, 1989. She’s survived by her partner, Martha (“Marty”) Dunham, and her daughters, Cassidy Brown and Anastasia Jean Dunham-Parker. Poet Cheryl Clarke said Parker was a leading voice in the world of lesbian poetry. Parker was a pioneer who led the way, and was unafraid to be herself. Shortly after her death, the Pat Parker Poetry Award was created to award Black Lesbian poets. In 2019, fifty years after the Stonewall Riots, Parker was inducted into the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor. Parker was an inspiration to many poets and activists who used their own writings to express their struggles and experiences. We Amplify her as she did others: by telling pieces of her story, hoping that others won’t feel alone.

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