 rita mae brown (born november 28, 1944) is an american writer and feminist. she is best known for her first novel rubyfruit jungle. published in 1973, it dealt with lesbian themes in an explicit manner unusual for the time. brown is also a mystery writer and screenwriter. ==early life== brown was born illegitimate  in hanover, pennsylvania. she was raised by her biological mother's female cousin and the cousin's husband in york, pennsylvania and later in ft. lauderdale, florida. starting in the fall 1962 semester, brown attended the university of florida at gainesville on a scholarship. in the spring of 1964, the administrators of the racially segregated university expelled her for participating in the civil rights movement. brown wrote in her 1997 autobiography that she had known two brothers enrolled at the university who had participated in the st. augustine movement in 1964 and had suffered consequences much worse than what she had faced. "the reports from the university of florida turned my stomach. the two brothers [whom brown did not identify by name] who had taken so many risks for integration had been locked on the eighth floor of j. hillis miller health center [on campus], the nut floor. one of them killed himself. i don't know how. a suicide verdict makes me suspicious, especially in a person as outgoing and stable as he appeared to me. ... was it a case of 'let's teach this white boy a lesson'?" brown wrote that the two brothers had traveled from the gainesville campus to st. augustine to participate in demonstrations there. "i felt that southern whites working for equality and racial justice were thrown to the dogs, or maybe the death of this young man sits heavy on my soul and i couldn't see beyond it. a young man, full of promise and goodness. i couldn't believe my eyes when [my fellow classmate on the gainesville campus] jer
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