Ottobah Cugoano – The Poem
This summer, I embarked on a 21-day trip to Ghana, motivated by my deep admiration for Ottobah Cugoano, an important historical figure whose legacy is...
Category : Literature
Black authors, poets and playwrights. Literary Quotes and Poems.
There It Is by Jayne Cortez
My friendthey don’t careif you’re an individualista leftist a rightista shithead or a snakeThey will try to exploit youabsorb you confine youdisconnect you isolate youor...
Gwendolyn B. Bennett: The Harlem Renaissance Writer and Painter
Gwendolyn B. Bennett was an African-American poet, essayist, short-story writer, and artist. Although she never published her own volume of poetry, she was one of...
In Praise of the Ancestors by Mazisi Kunene
I have come to appreciate that African wisdom recognizes that there are other unseen forces in the universe apart from the creator. The Egun (Ancestors)...
Lucille Clifton: The Award-winning Poet
“I write to celebrate life.” “I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being...
Alfred Fagon: Jamaican-born Black-British Playwright
Alfred Fagon was a Jamaican-born playwright, poet and actor. He was one of the most notable Black British playwrights of the 1970s and 1980s. Fagon...
“SPEECH TO THE YOUNG, SPEECH TO THE PROGRESS-TOWARD” by Gwendolyn Brooks
Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, “even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be...
Quotes from Waiting for the Rain by Charles Mungoshi
When I read Waiting for the Rain by Charles Mungoshi (about 8 years ago), I was so struck by the beauty and wisdom of the...
A Poet To His Baby Son by James Weldon Johnson,
Tiny bit of humanity, Blessed with your mother’s face, And cursed with your father’s mind. I say cursed with your father’s mind, Because you can...
James Weldon Johnson: Author of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”
James Weldon Johnson was an African-American writer, who distinguished himself in civil rights, diplomacy, education, journalism, law, literature, and music. In 1900, Johnson wrote the...