Michelle Alexander was born in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. At a young age her family relocated to San Francisco, California. Alexander earned her B.A. from Vanderbilt University and her J.D. from Stanford University. She is an acclaimed civil rights lawyer, but is best known for her award-winning book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Michelle has given multiple interviews regarding the book on national radio and television programs. In 2005 she was awarded the Soros Justice Fellowship which helped support her writing of this book. She is currently an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Moore, R. (2017). New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. Macat International Limited.
Marguerite Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri on April 4, 1928. At a young age she was taken with her brother to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. Angelou attributes this time spent with her paternal grandmother and extended family for her strong work ethic and reverence for family values. Due to a stutter, Angelou had a difficult time pronouncing her own name. Her brother, with whom she had a close relationship, nicknamed her “Maya” after reading a book about the Maya indians. It would be later in the early 1950s that she would formally change her name to Maya Angelou. At age seven Maya was sexually assaulted by her mother’s boyfriend while visiting her in Chicago. In interviews given by Angelou later on in her life, she would say at this time she stopped speaking. It was her exposure to and love of poetry that would help her find her words again. Maya would go on to become a prolific writer, speaker, performer, and a Civil Rights activist.
Poetry Foundation. (n.d.) Maya Angelou. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou
Maya Angelou - Biography. (2019, November 7). Academy of Achievement. Retrieved January 31, 2021 from https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/.
Toni Cade Bamabara was born in New York, New York in 1939. Her mother was greatly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and pushed her towards writing. In 1959 she earned her B.A. in Theater and English from Queens College. She would take her first job as an academic teaching theater at City College in 1965. In 1974 Bambara would relocate to Atlanta and teach at Spelman College. At this time Bambara was already a prolific writer. It is in the South that she would create a community for Atlanta’s black artists. In 1985 Bambara would move to Philadelphia where she would write Those Bones and later co-produce the documentary The Bombing of Osage Avenue.
Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. (2013). Toni Cade Bambara. University of Georgia. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://georgiawritershalloffame.org/honorees/toni-cade-bambara.
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. As a child her family relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Brooks demonstrated an aptitude for writing at an early age. She published her first poem at age thirteen. At age seventeen she would be published in a local paper dedicated to the black community, the Chicago Defender. Brooks would later work for the AACP while attending junior college. Her first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville, was published in 1945. Four years later she would be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poem, Annie Allen. The primary subjects of Brooks's work was the experience of the Black urban poor. At the age of 68 Brooks would go on to be the first black woman to be appointed to the post of poetry consultant for the Library of Congress, later known as the Poet Laureate. “In recognition of her service and achievements, a junior high school in Harvey, Illinois, was named for her, and she was similarly honored by Western Illinois University’s Gwendolyn Brooks Center for African-American Literature. In 2017 celebrations of the centenary of Brooks’s birth were held at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where Gwendolyn Brooks’s papers are held.”
Poetry Foundation. (n.d.) Gwendolyn Brooks. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gwendolyn-brooks
Octavia Butler was born in Pasadena, California in 1947. Butler was raised by her mother and grandmother in the culturally diverse community of Pasadena. At a young age she spent much of her time at her local library where she immersed herself in fantasy fiction. Butler would go on to attend Pasadena City College where she was encouraged to write science fiction. In an effort to support herself while she wrote, Butler worked many jobs including telemarketing, food inspection, and dish washing. She persevered and was awarded the Hugo award for best novelette and short story in 1984 and 1985. Butler was also the only science fiction author to receive the MacArthur Foundation Grant. The grant afforded her more time for her craft and wrote the Parable Trilogy. Butler’s work has now become more widely taught in colleges and universities around the world Her themes of Black Futurism, environmentalism, and feminism are even more poignant today than at the time of their publication.
About the author. (n.d.) Octavia E. Butler. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.octaviabutler.com/theauthor
Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in a small upstate New York town, Depew, near Buffalo. She studied a short while at Howard University before transferring to SUNY Fredonia. At age 33 her first published book of poems, Good Times, was rated by the New York Times as one of the best books of that year. It is said that her poetry was shared by a mutual friend with Langston Hugues who published some of her work in the anthology, The Poetry of the Negro, just two years later. In addition to poetry, Clifton wrote children's literature. Her most famous character would be Everett Anderson which won the Coretta Scott King award in 1984. Clifton’s work focused on the themes of love, humanity, and perseverance within the framework of African American urban life. In an interview she is quoted as saying, “writing is a way of continuing to hope ... perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone. ...I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human. My inclination is to try to help.”
Poetry Foundation. (n.d.) Lucille Clifton. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lucille-clifton
Brittney Cooper is an author, activist, and professor from Ruston, Louisiana. Currently Cooper is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University. Dr. Cooper’s areas of academic scholarship are “Black women’s intellectual history; Black feminist thought; race and gender politics in hip hop and popular culture.” Her first publication, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (2017) won critical acclaim. National Public Radio called it “a work of crucial cultural study.” In 2016 she gave a Ted Talk on racial politics. Cooper has also published two other books on black feminism. She has also written articles for popular magazines such as Salon.
Brittney Cooper - Rutgers, Africana Studies. (2021). Rutgers School of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://africanastudies.rutgers.edu/faculty-mainmenu-134/core-faculty/140-brittney-cooper
Roxane Gay was born in 1974 in Omaha, Nebraska. Later in her childhood her family relocated to New Hampshire. Her early essays were influenced by a sexual assault that happened to her as a teenager. Gay would later become an author, professor, and an advocate for feminism and the LGBTQ community. Gay currently writes short stories, essays, opinion pieces, and literary fiction including content for The World of Wakanda.
About Roxane. (2021). Roxane Gay. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://roxanegay.com/about/.
Roxane Gay On Acknowledging — And Owning — Her 'Bad' Feminism. (August 3, 2014). National Public Radio. Retrieved January 24, 2013 from https://www.npr.org/2014/08/03/337126684/roxane-gay-on-acknowledging-and-owning-her-bad-feminism
Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago in 1930. At the age of seven her parents bought a house in a white middle class suburb of Chicago. The Hansberry family was met with hostility and resentment by the white residents. Instead of moving elsewhere, Hansberry’s parents sued and eventually won their case in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940. As a young adult she would move to New York City where she would pursue her career as a writer. Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, would be the first theater production written by a Black author to be performed on Broadway. She would later become the first Black author to win the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle Award. In the 1950s Hansberry would self-identify as a “feminist and a lesbian.” During her short career, Hansberry would befriend James Baldwin, another Black author, activist, and fellow member of the gay community. Baldwin would later write a heartfelt tribute as the foreword for To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, a posthumous collection of Hansberry’s writings.
Lorraine Hansberry - Inductee. (2020). The Legacy Project. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/lorraine-hansberry.
Born as Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952 in a segregated town of Kentucky. She would later publish her first book, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, under her pen name, “bell hooks.” In an article written for the New York Times, Hooks is quoted as saying that she wanted her name to be spelled in all lowercase letters to place emphasis on her work rather than her “identity” (Lee, M.J., 2019). Hooks earned her BA in English from Stanford University, a MA in English from the University of Wisconsin, and her PhD in English from the University of California Santa Cruz in 1974 with a dissertation focused on the writings of Toni Morrison. Hooks has taught at multiple colleges including USC, Yale University, and the City College of New York. Hooks is a prolific author whose works include both fiction and nonfiction, children’s literature, poetry, and documentary films.
Bell Hooks.(n.d.). The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/bell-hooks
Lee, M.J. (February 28, 2019). “In praise of bell hooks.” The New York Times. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/books/bell-hooks-min-jin-lee-aint-i-a-woman.html
Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1891 in Alabama, but shortly after her family moved to Eatonville, Florida. Hurston’s mother was an elementary school teacher and her father a carpenter and Baptist minister. Eatonville was the first incorporated Black township in the state of Florida. This would have a strong influence as a future author along with the sudden loss of her mother when Zora was only thirteen years old. It is said that Hurston had a confrontational relationship with her young stepmother. As a headstrong and eccentric young adult, Hurston left Florida to join the Gilbert & Sullivan traveling troupe which landed her in Baltimore. At the age of 26, Hurston had still not completed her high school education. In order to do so, she presented herself as a much younger sixteen year old teenager. For the rest of her life she would always claim that she was ten years younger than her actual age. In the 1920s Hurston worked her way into the Harlem Renaissance. She befriended influencers such as Langston Hughes. In 1928 Hurston earned her degree from Barnard College. Over the next decade she would write prolifically while she established a drama program for black authors and performers, enter a program at Columbia University to earn her PhD, won the Guggenheim Fellowship to study West Indian obeah practices, to finally writing her most famous work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which she wrote while studying in Haiti. Hurston would continue to write up until 1959 when she suffered a stroke and was placed in the care of the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. Sadly, she would die several months later and be buried in an unmarked grave. Her grave would eventually be discovered by the author, Alice Walker in 1975. Walker would write a tribute to Hurston that same year.
Boyd, V. (2020). “About Zora Neale Hurston.” The official website of Zora Neale Hurston. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/
Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery in 1813 in Edenton, North Carolina. Harriet’s owner, Margaret Horniblow, taught her how to read and write. Upon Horniblow’s death in 1825, Harriet was bequeathed to her owner’s infant niece, Mary Norcom. Harriet was eleven years old at this time. Due to her new owner’s age, Harriet became the charge of Mary Norcom’s father, Dr. James Norcom. Due to fortunate circumstances, Harriet’s grandmother, Molly Horniblow, was freed and settled into a residence near the Norcoms. As written in her autobiography, Harriet often had to fend off advances made by James Norcom. Out of desperation Harriet began a relationship with a local white attorney, Samuel Sawyer, who would father both of her children. In one of the most trying periods for Jacobs, she spent seven years hiding inside the attic crawlspace of her grandmother’s home. In this way she would watch her children grow while avoiding the advances of James Norcom. While Jacobs would escape to freedom in 1842, she was not free of Norcom’s attempts to recapture her and return her to slavery. Over the next two decades Harriet would travel throughout the Northeast and even abroad to England to avoid being captured by her former master and his family. It would be in 1861 London that Jacobs would finally publish her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
Andrews, W.L. (n.d.) “Harriet A. Jacobs (Harriet Ann), 1813-1897.” Documenting the American South. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/jacobs/bio.html
Gayl Jones was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1949. Jones’s mother, a stay at home mother, was known for her love of storytelling. Unlike her peers, Gayl would attend a predominantly white high school where her love of writing would be encouraged. One of Jones’s teachers helped her to receive a scholarship to Connecticut College where she studied African American Literature. Jones would go on to earn her M.A. and PhD from Brown University. Jones has authored fiction, poetry, and even a play. For a brief time Jones worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. Her last published work, The Healing, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1998. Jones's writing influences include renowned authors such as Alice Walker and James Joyce.
Mercado, D. (n.d.) Gayl Jones. Retrieved January 24, 2021 from https://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Gayl+Jones
Nella Larsen was born in 1893 in Chicago. Her mother was of Danish descent and her father was an immigrant from the West Indies. Larsen’s father died when she was just a toddler and her mother remarried shortly after to a man also from Denmark. Larsen traveled in early adulthood to Copenhagen where she would audit classes. She eventually earned a nursing degree in 1915 in New York City. In 1918 she left nursing for library school. She became a children’s librarian for the 135th Street Branch in Harlem. She would later marry a physicist, Elmer Imes, and remain in Harlem. It is likely that Larsen and her husband were part of the African American social elites in their community. Larsen is known for her two novels, Quicksand, which was published in 1928, and Passing, which was published in 1929. Both works deal with Black identity based on appearance which may have been influenced by her relationships with her Danish mother and stepfather. In 1930 Nella Larsen became the first African American to win the Guggenheim Fellowship Award. Larsen would eventually divorce her husband and return to her work as a nurse. There is very little known about her life after this point.
Nella Larsen. (2004). In Encyclopedia of World Biography (2nd ed., Vol. 9, pp. 209-210). Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3404703727/GVRL?u=csubak&sid=GVRL&xid=4e4adc98
Born in Milford, New Hampshire around 1800, Harriet Wilson is known to have only published one novel, Our Nig; or, Sketches From the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-Story White House, North. Showing that Slavery's Shadows Fall Even There. Wilson spent most of her childhood and young adulthood as a servant, sometimes indentured, until she married at the age of 26, gave birth to a son, and was widowed by the age of 28. She often lived in poverty, and during most of her son’s lifetime, Wilson traveled to find work as a servant, seamstress, and hairdresser. She likely wrote Our Nig during this time period in the late 1850s, and the novel is considered to be largely autobiographical. The story itself is about a girl of mixed race born and raised free in the North before the Civil War. It chronicles the harsh conditions of her indenture as well as the abandonment by and death of her parents. Shortly after the novel’s publication in 1859, Wilson’s only son died. Shortly thereafter, she became involved in the Spiritualist movement and moved to Boston in the late 1860s before remarrying. She died on June 28, 1900 and is buried in Quincy, Massachusetts. Her novel was rediscovered in the 1980s by scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. His research determined the author of the novel was not white, as had been previously assumed, but a woman of mixed race. Through lengthy research, Dr. Gates retraced the life of Harriet Wilson through the Northeast.
Harriet E. Wilson. (2004). In Encyclopedia of World Biography (2nd ed., Vol. 16, pp. 320-322). Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3404706906/GVRL?u=csubak&sid=GVRL&xid=3212a8bf
Additional Resource: http://www.harrietwilsonproject.net/harriet-wilson-.html
