If I might be so bold as to express a heartfelt wish for the future, it would be that all Sisters of all races, creeds, colors, and sexual persuasions might realize the folly of fighting amongst ourselves and band together to confront our common enemy, who continues to wage an unrelenting war against all of us.

—Anita Cornwell

Black lesbian feminist, essayist, journalist, poet, author, and cultural worker, Anita Cornwell wrote extensively about her experiences as a Black lesbian in the United States during the twentieth century exposing the innerworkings of heteropatriarchy, misogyny, racism, the Jim Crow South, and white supremacy.

A scholar of Black Lesbian Studies, Cornwell wrote the first collection of essays by a Black lesbian, Black Lesbian in White America, published by Naiad Press in 1983. These essays chronicle her experiences battling against misogyny, homophobia, and racism. Her writing also attends to love and familial loss.

This reprint of Cornwell’s classic essays on being Black and lesbian, includes a groundbreaking interview between Cornwell and Audre Lorde.

Black Lesbian in White America and Other Writings also includes previous unpublished poetry by Cornwell and features a revelatory introduction by scholar Briona Simone Jones.

Praise for Anita Cornwell

“The first Black woman writer to publicly identify as a lesbian in print at a time when doing so was nothing short of radical.”
—The Philadelphia Enquirer

“[An] early groundbreaking statement about what we now refer to as intersectional politics.”
—Marc Stein, author of City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves

“Cornwell traverses the terrains of grief, misogynoir, patriarchy, class, imperialism, white supremacy, and antiblackness while also managing to articulate the nuances of love, desire, and freedom.”
—From the Foreword by Briona Simone Jones

About Anita Cornwell

Anita Cornwell (1923-2023) was a Black lesbian feminist, essayist, journalist, poet, author, and cultural worker. Cornwell studied journalism at Temple University and graduated in 1948. She regularly contributed to both The Ladder and The Negro Digest in the 1950s and was the first Black woman writer to publicly identify as a lesbian in print. Her published work appeared in Philadelphia Tribune, and her poetry and essays were published in Feminist Review, Labyrinth, Azalea: A Magazine by Third-World Lesbians, and BLACK/OUT. Cornwell died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 100.

About Briona Simone Jones

Briona Simone Jones is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut and the editor of Mouths of Rain.

Press Kit.