Minnie Bruce Pratt children: Meet Ben and Ransom Weaver – Minnie Bruce Pratt was an American poet, educator, activist, and essayist. She was born on September 12, 1946, and died on July 2, 2023, at the age of 79.

Her death was confirmed by her two sons Ben and Ransom Weaver who said on her website that her death was caused by “a severe health problem”.

Ben and Ransom were born as a result of a previous heterosexual marriage to poet Marvin E. Weaver II, which ended in divorce in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1975. She lost custody of her children because the state criminalized homosexual activity at the time.

Pratt graduated with a B.A. from the University of Alabama (1968) and earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina (1979).

While attending the University of North Carolina in 1978, she joined Feminary, a southern feminist writing collective based in Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina.

She later joined LIPS, a Washington, D.C. lesbian direct action group, which participated in civil disobedience at the 1987 protest of the Bowers v. Hardwick sodomy law decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court.

She wrote extensively on race, class, gender, and sexual theory.