FEBRUARY 18: TODAY'S INSPIRING WOMEN

TONI Morrison

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison was born today in 1931. She is perhaps best known for her novel Beloved. 

IRMA THOMAS

Grammy Award winning singer Irma Thomas was born in 1941.

AUDRE LORDE

Audre Lorde, an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist, was born today in 1934. She was a prolific writer who authored a book of poetry or essay almost every year.

DEEPER DIVE

Learn more about the life of Audre Lorde and read one of her poems:

A Woman Speaks

Moon marked and touched by sun   
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.   
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love   
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus   
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities   
who am ageless and half-grown   
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths   
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic   
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures   
promised
I am
woman
and not white.

Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1997)