June Jordan
(July 9, 1936 - June 14, 2002) U.S.A.
Writer, activist, educator
Black and bisexual Jordan was born in Harlem of Jamaican immigrants and grew up in Brooklin in an urban black context that taught her early on about racism, and influenced her political work. She was educated at Barnard College where she met and married a white student, Michael Meyer.
In 1958, she gave birth to her only child, Christopher David Meyer. Being in an interracial marriage in the 1950's was especially difficult due to societal attitudes and laws. In 1965, Jordan's marriage ended in divorce and Jordan faced the trials of being a single, working mother and forming her identity.
Jordan studied architectural design and in 1964 worked with the visionary architect Buckminster Fuller. Her mother's suicide in 1966 was one of the tragedies in her life. In 1967 she began her teaching career at the City College of New York. This was followed by several other teaching posts and in 1989 she became professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
She received the Chancellor's Distinguished Lectureship from the University of California at Berkeley, and the PEN Center USA West Freedom to Write Award, 1991. These awards just name a few of the honors Jordan has received throughout her lifetime. June Jordan died of breast cancer.
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