Who was June Jordan?
Bisexual poet and essayist June Jordan devoted her life and work to the struggles of oppressed and disenfranchised people throughout the world. Her belief that all forms of oppression are connected led writer Alice Walker to dub her “the universal poet.” Jordan was born to Jamaican immigrant parents in Harlem on July 9, 1936, and grew up in Brooklyn. Her father, a postal worker, and her mother, a nurse, worked hard to give their only daughter an excellent education. Her father was disappointed that she was not a boy, however, and often beat her. Jordan attended the private Northfield School for Girls in Massachusetts, where, she later recalled, she was “completely immersed in a white universe.” Jordans elite education continued at Barnard College. In 1955a time when interracial relationships were socially condemned and legally prohibited in much of the countryshe married Michael Meyer, a white student who shared her passion for political activism; the couple remained together for 10 ye
