Dorothy Parker was a lifelong defender of civil rights and civil liberties. When she died, she left her estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as this article describes. After his assassination, her cremated remains variously resided in a crematory in Westchester County, a Manhattan lawyer's office, , a garden outside NAACP headquarters. When the NAACP moved to Washington in 2020, it was agreed that her ashes would be brought to her family's plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where Parker's parents and grandparents are buried.
Parker was a fighter first--against White supremacy and fascism. She was also a brilliant writer and wit. This poem is an example of the latter.
"Men"
They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They'll try to make you different;
And once they have you, safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on;
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired.
They make me sick, they make me tired.