Pat Parker
| Pat Parker | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Patricia Cooks January 20, 1944 Houston, Texas |
| Died | June 17, 1989 (aged 45) Oakland, California |
| Residence |
 United States
|
| Nationality | African American |
| Occupation | poet, activist |
| Spouse(s) | Ed Bullins, June 20, 1962 (divorced, January 17, 1966) Robert F. Parker, January 20, 1966 (divorced) |
| Partner(s) | Marty Dunham, life partner |
| Children | Cassidy Brown Anastasia Dunham-Parker |
| Parent(s) | Ernest Nathaniel Cooks Marie Louise (Anderson) Cooks |
| Notes | |
Pat Parker (January 20, 1944 – June 19, 1989 Houston, Texas) was an African-American lesbian feminist poet.
Parker grew up working class poor in Third Ward, Houston, Texas, a mostly African-American part of the city. Her mother (born Marie Louise Anderson) was a domestic worker, and her father, Ernest Nathaniel Cooks retreaded tires.
When she was four years old, her family moved to Sunnyside, Houston, Texas.
She left home at seventeen, moved to Los Angeles, California, earning an undergraduate degree there at Los Angeles City College, and a graduate degree at San Francisco State College. She got married to playwright Ed Bullins in 1962. Parker and Bullins separated after four years. She later said that her ex-husband was physically violent and that she was "scared to death of him".
She got married a second time, to Berkeley, California writer Robert F. Parker, but decided that the "idea of marriage... wasn't working" for her.
Parker began to identify as a lesbian in the late 1960s, and, in a 1975 interview with Anita Cornwell, stated that "after my first relationship with a woman, I knew where I was going."
Parker was involved in the Black Panther Movement, in 1979 she toured with the Varied Voices of Black Women, a group of poets and musicians which included Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins & Gwen Avery. She founded the Black Women's Revolutionary Council in 1980, and she also contributed to the formation of the Women's Press Collective, as well as being involved in wide-ranging activism in gay and lesbian organizing.
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