 Vol. 3, Issue 1 cover | |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
|---|---|
| First issue | 1977 |
| Final issue | 1983 |
| Company | Salsa Soul Sisters, Third World Wimmin Inc Collective |
| Language | English |
Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians was a quarterly periodical for Black, Asian, Latina, and Native American lesbians published between 1977 and 1983 [1] by the Salsa Soul Sisters, Third World Wimmin Inc Collective. [2] The Collective also published the Salsa Soul Sisters/Third World Women's Gay-zette (c. 1982). [1] [3] [4]
Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians was named after the hardy flower which blooms in spring. Azalea founders Joan Gibbs, Robin Christian, and Linda Brown formed in 1974, growing out of the Black Lesbian Caucus of the New York City Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). [5] At the time there were no periodicals publishing stories by women of color. Instead of working within confines of the powers that oppressed them they began creating their own organizations and institutions. One of the founders, Joan Gibbs gives this reason to why Azaleas started
"Azalea was started because at the time people were constantly complaining about how the, quote, unquote, white feminist and lesbian publications weren't publishing writings by black and Latina women principally. So then I decided, well, why don't we just start our own magazine and stop complaining. There's no point in complaining constantly. You just do it yourself." [6]
Azalea mission as explained by Joan Gibbs is further exemplified by a quote from the introduction of every Azalea issue.
Black lesbian publishing ventures of "second wave" feminism include the radial lesbian collective Azalea, which began in the late 1970s with a mission to publish unedited works by women of color and ended in the early 1980s. [7]
Azalea reached out to further their mission through the community they were organizing. A significant step towards organizing the community was to publish stories without editing them. refused to edit articles sent to them and published them without editing them. An excerpt from the introduction of many of issues of Azalea elaborates how the group realized the need for independent community action.
Azalea was created partially... because we feel that a lot of feminist and/or lesbian publications build walls around themselves in the same way as establishment publications do and it has been our experience that whenever standards are set in this country, the people who most often set them are white and thusly have not sought to include third world people [8]
It was made clear by the magazine that they wanted to offer a space for third world lesbian writers. Azalea was one of the driving components of minority recognition through community organization throughout the late 70s until 1983 when it released its final issue.
Rodger Streitmatter, author of Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America, notes that the founders of the periodical attempted not to perpetuate oppression and replicate societal biases by refusing to "assess the quality of contributions sent to them, publishing all material without any editing." [9] This was clearly expressed with the following message being printed into every volume, with minor variations in earlier versions:
we print what You send us; anything that is important to ourselves Third
World lesbians. We readily accept and welcome work from “newcomers”
as well as “regulars.” One of our commitments is to publish 3rd world
lesbian writers and visual artists whose work has never appeared in
AZALEA. Therefore...it may sometimes become necessary to return
material to womyn whose work has already appeared in two
CONSECUTIVE previous issues—asking you to hold it for a later issue or
to submit something else at another time. [10]
Azalea's goal was to reach out and fill a void in contemporary publications that excluded Black and Latina writers. [11]
The magazine published contributions from Africa, Asia and South America as well as material from the United States. [12] The first bibliography issue featured Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, Pat Parker, Lorraine Hansberry, and Zora Neale Hurston as writers. [13] Artists also contributed to the magazine. Irare Sabasu drew portrait silhouettes that were featured on many covers. [14] :102 Azalea published three issues from 1977 to 1982; during their last year in 1983 they only issued 2 copies.
Audre Lorde was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice, as she believed there could be "no hierarchy of oppressions" among "those who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children."
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it.
Anita Cornwell was an American lesbian feminist author. In 1983, she wrote the first collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, Black Lesbian in White America.
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was an activist feminist press, closely related to the National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), that was started in 1980 by Barbara Smith, Beverly Smith, poet Audre Lorde. Beverly Smith and Barbara Smith, and their associate Demita Frazier, had together cofounded the Combahee River Collective (CRC). The Kitchen Table became inactive soon after Audre Lorde's death in 1992. The motivation for starting a press run by and for women of color was that "as feminist and lesbian of color writers, we knew that we had no options for getting published, except at the mercy or whim of others, whether in the context of alternative or commercial publishing, since both are white-dominated."
The Audre Lorde Project is a Brooklyn, New York–based organization for LGBTQ people of color. The organization concentrates on community organizing and radical nonviolent activism around progressive issues within New York City, especially relating to LGBTQ communities, AIDS and HIV activism, pro-immigrant activism, prison reform and organizing among youth of color. It is named for the lesbian-feminist poet and activist Audre Lorde and was founded in 1994.
Sinister Wisdom is an American lesbian literary, theory, and art journal published quarterly in Berkeley, California. Started in 1976 by Catherine Nicholson and Harriet Ellenberger (Desmoines) in Charlotte, North Carolina, it is the longest established lesbian journal, with 128 issues as of 2023. Each journal covers topics pertaining to the lesbian experience including creative writing, poetry, literary criticism and feminist theory. Sinister Wisdom accepts submissions from novice to accredited writers and has featured the works of writers and artists such as Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich. The journal has pioneered female publishing, working with female operated publishing companies such as Whole Women Press and Iowa City Women's Press. Sapphic Classics, a partnership between Sinister Wisdom and A Midsummer Night's Press, reprints classic lesbian works for contemporary audiences.
Vice Versa (1947–1948), subtitled "America's Gayest Magazine", is the earliest known U.S. periodical published especially for lesbians. Its mission was to express lesbian emotion within the bounds of good taste.
The Salsa Soul Sisters, today known as the African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change, is the oldest black lesbian organization in the United States.Operating from 1974 to 1993, the Salsa Soul Sisters identified as lesbians, womanists and women of color, based in New York City Arguments within the Salsa Soul Sisters resulted in the disbanding of the Salsa Soul Sisters into two groups, Las Buenas Amigas made for Latinas, and African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change made for African-diaspora lesbians.
Conditions was a lesbian feminist literary magazine that came out biannually from 1976 to 1980 and annually from 1980 until 1990, and included poetry, prose, essays, book reviews, and interviews. It was founded in Brooklyn, New York, by Elly Bulkin, Jan Clausen, Irena Klepfisz and Rima Shore.
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (1983) is a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist essays, edited by Barbara Smith. The anthology includes different accounts from 32 black women of feminist ideology who come from a variety of different areas, cultures, and classes. This collection of writings is intended to showcase the similarities among black women from different walks of life. In the introduction, Smith states her belief that "Black feminism is, on every level, organic to Black experience." Writings within Home Girls support this belief through essays that exemplify black women's struggles and lived experiences within their race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, and home life. Topics and stories discussed in the writings often touch on subjects that in the past have been deemed taboo, provocative, and profound.
Pat Parker was an African American poet and activist. Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as a Black lesbian feminist. Her poetry spoke about her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister. At eighteen, Parker was in an abusive relationship and had a miscarriage after being pushed down a flight of stairs. After two divorces, she came out as a lesbian, "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself".
Drum was an American gay men's culture and news magazine published monthly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, featuring homoerotic photographs as well as news, book reviews, editorials, and fiction. It was published beginning in October 1964 by the homophile activist group the Janus Society as a continuation of the group's monthly newsletter. Edited by Clark Polak, the president of the Janus Society, the magazine represented Polak's radical approach to the homophile movement by emphasizing sexual liberation when other homophile organizations were focused on assimilating with straight society.
Michiyo Fukaya, also known as Michiyo Cornell, was an American feminist poet and activist whose work played an important part in the lesbian and Asian American communities. In 1979, Fukaya gave a speech entitled "Living in Asian America: An Asian American Lesbian's Address Before the Washington Monument" at the First National Third World Lesbian and Gay Conference. Drawing a parallel between the oppression of men and women in Third World countries to the oppression experienced by lesbian and gay Asian Americans, she acknowledged they both stemmed from white racism. Fukaya called attention to both racism in the lesbian and gay movement as well as heterosexism in the growing Asian American community. Fukaya's writing appeared in publications such as Azalea: A Magazine by Third World Lesbians. Her poetry and prose is collected in A Fire Is Burning, It Is In Me: The Life and Writing of Michiyo Fukaya.
Michelle Parkerson is an American filmmaker and academic. She is an assistant professor in Film and Media Arts at Temple University and has been an independent film/video maker since the 1980s, focusing particularly on feminist, LGBT, and political activism and issues.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches is a collection of essential essays and speeches written by Audre Lorde, a writer who focuses on the particulars of her identity: Black woman, lesbian, poet, activist, cancer survivor, mother, and feminist. This collection, now considered a classic volume of Lorde's most influential works of non-fiction prose, has had a groundbreaking impact in the development of contemporary feminist theories. In fifteen essays and speeches dating from 1976 to 1984, Lorde explores the complexities of intersectional identity, while explicitly drawing from her personal experiences of oppression to include sexism, heterosexism, racism, homophobia, classism, and ageism. The book examines a broad range of topics, including love, self-love, war, imperialism, police brutality, coalition building, violence against women, Black feminism, and movements towards equality that recognize and embrace differences as a vehicle for change. With meditative conscious reasoning, Lorde explores her misgivings for the widespread marginalization deeply-rooted in the United States' white patriarchal system, all the while, offering messages of hope. The essays in this landmark collection are extensively taught and have become a widespread area of academic analysis. Lorde's philosophical reasoning that recognizes oppressions as complex and interlocking designates her work as a significant contribution to critical social theory.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) journalism history.
Queer of color critique is an intersectional framework, grounded in Black feminism, that challenges the single-issue approach to queer theory by analyzing how power dynamics associated race, class, gender expression, sexuality, ability, culture and nationality influence the lived experiences of individuals and groups that hold one or more of these identities. Incorporating the scholarship and writings of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Barbara Smith, Cathy Cohen, Brittney Cooper and Charlene A. Carruthers, the queer of color critique asks: what is queer about queer theory if we are analyzing sexuality as if it is removed from other identities? The queer of color critique expands queer politics and challenges queer activists to move out of a "single oppression framework" and incorporate the work and perspectives of differently marginalized identities into their politics, practices and organizations. The Combahee River Collective Statement clearly articulates the intersecting forces of power: "The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives." Queer of color critique demands that an intersectional lens be applied queer politics and illustrates the limitations and contradictions of queer theory without it. Exercised by activists, organizers, intellectuals, care workers and community members alike, the queer of color critique imagines and builds a world in which all people can thrive as their most authentic selves- without sacrificing any part of their identity.
Your Silence Will Not Protect You is a 2017 posthumous collection of essays, speeches, and poems by African American author and poet Audre Lorde. It is the first time a British publisher collected Lorde's work into one volume. The collection focuses on key themes such as: shifting language into action, silence as a form of violence, and the importance of history. Lorde describes herself as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet", and addresses the difficulties in communication between Black and white women.
Black lesbian literature is a subgenre of lesbian literature and African American literature that focuses on the experiences of black women who identify as lesbians. The genre features poetry and fiction about black lesbian characters as well as non-fiction essays which address issues faced by black lesbians. Prominent figures within the genre include Ann Allen Shockley, Audre Lorde, Cheryl Clarke, and Barbara Smith.
Persephone Press was a publishing company and communications network run by a lesbian-feminist collective in Watertown, Massachusetts. The company published fourteen books between 1976 and 1983, when the organization was sold to Beacon Press.
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