Anita Cornwell facts for kids

Anita Cornwell (September 23, 1923 – May 27, 2023) was an American lesbian feminist author. In 1983, she wrote the first collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, Black Lesbian in White America.

Biography

Born in Greenwood, South Carolina, Cornwell moved to Pennsylvania at the age of 16, living first in Yeadon with her aunt, then in Philadelphia with her mother, who moved north when Cornwell was aged 18. Cornwell has one sibling, an older brother. She graduated from Temple University with a B.S. in journalism and the social sciences in 1948. She worked as a journalist for local newspapers and a clerical worker for government agencies.

Cornwell's early writings, published in The Ladder and The Negro Digest in the 1950s, were among the first to identify the author as a black lesbian, and other publications where her work has appeared include Feminist Review, Labyrinth, National Leader, and the Los Angeles Free Press.

Published on October 1, 1983, Cornwell's first book Black Lesbian in White America, which includes her essays and an interview with activist Audre Lorde, is widely noted as the first collection of essays by a black lesbian.

Cornwell was honored by the Annual Lambda Literary Festival, which was held in Philadelphia in 2000.

Cornwell died on May 27, 2023, at the age of 99.