June Jordan (1936−2002) was a poet, activist, journalist, essayist, and teacher, and the author of more than twenty-five works of poetry, fiction, essays, and children's books. Active in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and gay and lesbian rights movements, she was a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded the influential poetry program Poetry for the People. Among her honors were a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a National Book Award nomination, and a congressional citation for her outstanding contributions to literature, the progressive movement, and the civil rights movement.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs (editor) is the author of several books, including Homemade Field of Love: A Biography of June Jordan (forthcoming), Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals, for which she won a Whiting Award. In 2023 she won the Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.