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==Early life== |
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Jordan was born in 1936 in [[Harlem]], [[New York (state)|New York]], as the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents, Granville Ivanhoe and Mildred Maud Jordan.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/blackwomeninamer0000unse/page/169|title=Black Women in America|date=2005|author=Hine|edition=2nd|page=[https://archive.org/details/blackwomeninamer0000unse/page/169 169]}}</ref> Her father was a postal worker for the [[USPS]] and her mother was a part-time nurse.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/arts/june-jordan-65-poet-and-political-activist.html|title=June Jordan, 65, Poet and Political Activist|last=Smith|first=Dinitia|date=June 18, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 11, 2017|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> When Jordan was five, the family moved to the [[Bedford-Stuyvesant]] area of [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]].<ref name=":1" /> Jordan credits her father with passing on his love of literature, and she began writing her own poetry at the age of seven. |
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Jordan describes the complexities of her early childhood in her 2000 memoir, ''Soldier: A Poet's Childhood''. She explores her complicated relationship with her father, who encouraged her to read broadly and memorize passages of classical texts, but who would also beat her for the slightest misstep and call her "damn black devil child".<ref name="Jordan, June 2000">Jordan, June. ''Soldier: A Poet's Childhood'', New York, NY: Basic Civitas Books. 2000.</ref> In her 1986 essay "For My American Family", Jordan explores the many conflicts in growing up as the child of Jamaican immigrant parents, whose visions of their daughter's future far exceeded the urban ghettos of her present.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=June|title=Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays|date=2002|publisher=Basic/Civitas|location=New York|isbn=0465036929|pages=[https://archive.org/details/someofusdidnotdi00jord/page/137 137–142]|url=https://archive.org/details/someofusdidnotdi00jord/page/137}}</ref> Jordan's mother died by suicide, as is mentioned in ''On Call: Political Essays.''<ref>{{Cite book|title=On Call: Political Essays|last=Jordan|first=June|publisher=South End Press|year=1985|isbn=0-89608-269-5|location=Boston}}</ref> Jordan recalls her father telling her: "There was a war against colored people, I had to become a soldier."<ref name="Jordan, June 2000" /> |
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After attending [[Brooklyn]]'s [[Midwood High School]] for a year,<ref name=":1" /> Jordan enrolled in [[Northfield Mount Hermon School]], an elite preparatory school in New England.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/blackwomeninamer0000unse/page/169|title=Black Women in America|date=2005|author=Hine|edition=2nd|pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackwomeninamer0000unse/page/169 169–70]}}</ref> Throughout her education, Jordan became "completely immersed in a white universe"<ref>[[Margaret Busby]], [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/jun/20/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries "Obituary"], ''[[The Guardian]]'' (UK), June 20, 2002.</ref> by attending predominantly white schools; however, she was also able to construct and develop her identity as a black American and a writer. In 1953, Jordan graduated from high school and enrolled at [[Barnard College]] in New York City.<ref name=":2" /> |
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Jordan later expressed how she felt about [[Barnard College]] in her 1981 book ''Civil Wars'', writing: |
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<blockquote>No one ever presented me with a single Black author, poet, historian, personage, or idea for that matter. Nor was I ever assigned a single woman to study as a thinker, or writer, or poet, or life force. Nothing that I learned, here, lessened my feeling of pain or confusion and bitterness as related to my origins: my street, my family, my friends. Nothing showed me how I might try to alter the political and economic realities underlying our Black condition in white America.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jordan|first=June|title=Civil Wars|date=1981|publisher=Touchstone|location=New York|isbn=0807032328|page=[https://archive.org/details/civilwars00jord/page/100 100]|url=https://archive.org/details/civilwars00jord/page/100}}</ref></blockquote> |
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Due to this disconnect with the predominantly male, white curriculum, Jordan left Barnard without graduating. June Jordan emerged as a poet and political activist when black female authors were beginning to be heard.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/arts/june-jordan-65-poet-and-political-activist.html|title=June Jordan, 65, Poet and Political Activist|last=Smith|first=Dinitia|date=June 18, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 3, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> |
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== References == |
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{{Reflist}} |
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