Cheryl L. Clarke (born Washington D.C., May 16, 1947)[1] is an American lesbian poet, essayist, educator, and Black feminist community activist.
When she was 13 years old, Clarke crossed a picket line of African-American activists protesting segregation at Woolworth's on 14th Street.
When she came home, her mother, a staunch union member, told her never to cross a picket line again, educating her about the role of direct action in the civil rights movement.
[8] Clarke is the author of five collections of poetry: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (originally self-published in 1981 and distributed by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1982); for Firebrand Books, Living as a Lesbian (1986), Humid Pitch (1989), and Experimental Love (1993); and for Word Works, By My Precise Haircut (2016).
[11] Clarke served on the editorial collective of Conditions, an early lesbian publication, and has been published in numerous anthologies, journals, magazines, and newspapers, including Conditions, This Bridge Called My Back, Home Girls, The Black Scholar, The Kenyon Review, Belles Lettres, and Gay Community News.
[14] Cheryl Clarke is the author of "Lesbianism: an Act of Resistance", originally published in 1981 in the feminist anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.
"[15] Because she imagines lesbianism to be in opposition to male tyranny and coerced heterosexuality, she defines it as resistance, no matter how a woman is actually practicing it in her personal life.
[17] Clarke concludes that Black people must be committed to eliminating homophobia in the community by engaging in discussion with advocates for gay and lesbian liberation, getting educated about gay and lesbian politics, confronting internal and external homophobic attitudes, and understanding how these attitudes prevent total liberation.
In her work After Mecca, Clarke showcases women poets and writers and put queer characters at the center of her revolutionary fiction stories.