Marlowe

Abstract

I met Marlowe when she came and sat down next to me and opened up a conversation outside Mary’s Place in July 2006. Had I not met her under these circumstances, like many of the homeless women I’ve spoken with over the years, I would have had no clue that Marlowe was homeless. She, however, made the logical assumption, given our location, that I shared the experience of homelessness and almost immediately launched into a critique of the dehumanization of homeless people in the United States, pointing to the need to expand the struggles of the civil rights movement to address the basic human rights of homeless people. I was immediately struck by her mix of poise, dignity, and soft-spoken indignation, and I knew that I wanted to interview her for the book, and she was more than happy to find a public venue for her critique.