LHA Daughters of Bilitis Video Project: Pat Walker, 1988

LHA Daughters of Bilitis Video Project: Pat Walker, 1988

Pat Walker was an African American woman born on February 18, 1939 in Los Angeles, California. She was partially blind from birth and completely blind by her teens. When she was at the Oakland California Orientation Center for the Blind in 1958, she was introduced by Billye Talmadge to the Daughters of Bilitis. She sold cigarettes, candy and gum at a concession stand in a Berkeley office building lobby, volunteered at San Francisco Juvenile Prevention and was involved with various Daughters of Bilitis projects. She became president of the Daughters of Bilitis San Francisco chapter in 1960. Some of her poetry was featured in Daughters of Bilitis' publication, The Ladder, in 1962. In her later years, after leaving the Daughters of Bilitis and going to live in the desert, she shunned other gay and women’s organizations. In 1999, she died in her desert home, surrounded by friends and family.

**Gallo, M.M. (2006). Different Daughters—A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Movement. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc.