Cheryl L. Clarke is a writer, educator and lesbian Black feminist activist, born in Washington DC in 1947.

Writing

Raised in Washington DC, some of her earliest work reflected the troubled times of the 1960s and the rebellions that ripped through the District of Columbia following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clarke is the author of four collections of poetry from Firebrand Books

Firebrand Books

Firebrand Books, was established in the early 1980s by Nancy K. Bereano---a lesbian/feminist activist in Ithaca, NY. It is a feminist and lesbian publishing house and among the many which grew out of the Women's Press Movement. Other presses of that period include Naiad Books, Persephone and...

: Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (originally self-published in 1981); Living as a Lesbian, Humid Pitch and Experimental Love.

She also published After Mecca---Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (Rutgers University Press), the first study of its kind in a field that traditionally only recognizes Black male poets; Days of Good Looks {Carroll & Graf Publishing), a collection of poems and essays and Corridors of Nostalgia a collection of poetry.

Cheryl Clarke has served on the editorial collective of Conditions (magazine)

Conditions (magazine)

Conditions was a lesbian feminist literary annual founded in 1976 in Brooklyn, New York by Elly Bulkin, Jan Clausen, Irena Klepfisz and Rima Shore.-Publishing Collective:Conditions was a magazine which emphasised the lives and writings of lesbians, and, throughout its...

, an early lesbian publication and has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including: Home Girls

Home Girls

Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology is a collection of Black lesbian and Black feminist writing, edited by Barbara Smith. The anthology was first published in 1983 by Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and was reissued by Rutgers University Press in 2000 ....

, The Callaloo Journal

The Callaloo Journal

Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially...

 and Black Scholar.

Academic

A graduate of Howard University

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

, Clarke later received her Masters and Ph.D in English from Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

. This presaged a long relationship with the University where she has taught and worked. She is currently on the graduate faculty of the Rutgers University Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Director of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian/Gay Concerns. She presently serves as Dean of Students on the Livingston Campus at Rutgers University.

Community

Clarke is a member of the Board of Directors of the Newark Pride Alliance, which is a not-for-profit dedicated to LGBTQ advocacy and programming in the city of Newark, New Jersey.

Rutgers University