Professor Kimberly Jensen on MARIE EQUI at the Portland Launch

Last week Kimberly Jensen, Professor of History & Gender Studies at Western Oregon University, appeared as Special Guest for the Portland launch of MARIE EQUI: Radical Politics & Outlaw Passions. Here are excerpts from her remarks:

Michael’s biography of Marie Equi is superb. He addresses her personal and political lives with his thorough and thoughtful research and analysis. He brings Equi’s contradictions and complexities and triumphs to us with considered care. He brings a lesbian life at the turn of the twentieth century to us with thoughtful and determined writing.” …

“Restoring women’s lives and lesbian lives to the historical record and to our historical consciousness is often a daunting task, and Michael has combed the archives, historic newspapers, and oral histories to restore Marie Equi’s life to our history. We cannot understand our history, our community, without confronting and knowing her life. I have only to think of what it means for my students and for me to know of Marie Equi’s life and activism, and I am forever in Michael’s debt. Michael demonstrates with great success and skill that the process of researching and writing a biography can be an act, an endeavor, of social justice.

Kim Jensen

You can learn more about Kimberly Jensen, including her history projects and links to her blog, at her faculty page.