Poet, writer and lit­er­ary critic Dorothy Parker was a found­ing mem­ber of the Algo­nquin Round­table. Known for her caus­tic wit, Parker was an out­spo­ken pro­po­nent of lib­er­tar­i­an­ism and civil rights.

In 1967, at age 73, Parker died of a heart attack in a New York City res­i­den­tial hotel. She bequeathed her state to Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Fol­low­ing the assas­si­na­tion of the civil rights leader the fol­low­ing year, Parker’s estate, and the lit­er­ary rights to her work, passed on to the National Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Col­ored Peo­ple (NAACP).

Parker was cre­mated, and left no instruc­tions for the dis­po­si­tion of her ashes. They remained unclaimed at Fer­n­cliff Cre­ma­tory in New York for six years. In 1973 the cre­ma­tory sent the ashes to Parker’s lawyer, Paul O’Dwyer, who kept them in a fil­ing cab­i­net in his office.

After they remained unclaimed for 21 years, NAACP retrieved the ashes from O’Dwyer in 1988 and cre­ated a memo­r­ial gar­den at the north­ern side of its national head­quar­ters. NAACP con­tin­ues to receive roy­al­ties from Parker’s lit­er­ary works to this day.

The marker reads:

Here lie the ashes of Dorothy Parker (1893 — 1967) humorist, writer, critic. Defender of human and civil rights. For her epi­taph she sug­gested, ‘Excuse my dust’. This memo­r­ial gar­den is ded­i­cated to her noble spirit which cel­e­brated the one­ness of humankind and to the bonds of ever­last­ing friend­ship between black and Jew­ish peo­ple. Ded­i­cated by the National Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Col­ored Peo­ple. Octo­ber 28, 1988.

MORE INFO:
Wikipedia: Dorothy Parker
DorothyParker.com

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