Audre Lorde is a legally blind Black lesbian poet born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants. Serving as the first-person speaker of her poetry, she draws directly from her own life. She works as a librarian and college professor while dedicating herself to activism against racism, sexism, classism, and anti-gay bias. In her writing, she equates her Black identity to coal formed deep within the earth, transforming the pressures of discrimination into diamond-like words.

Edwin Rollins is a gay man who marries Audre Lorde in 1962. During their marriage, the couple has two children together, and Lorde begins her career publishing books of poetry. They divorce in 1970 as they both embrace their true sexual identities.

Frances Clayton is Audre Lorde's long-term romantic partner. She becomes involved with the poet in 1972, remaining with her during Lorde's highly active years as an international activist and cofounder of the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.

Yemanjá, or Yemọja, is the mother of the Orishas (spirits) in the Yoruba religion. Within the context of Lorde's broader body of work, Yemanjá represents the ultimate maternal figure who fully embraces the dark-skinned Blackness that Lorde's own biological mother rejects.