Rudolph Fisher: A Renaissance Man of Science and Story
Rudolph Fisher (1897–1934) was a physician, radiologist, writer, musician, and orator whose remarkable, though brief, life had a profound impact on the Harlem Renaissance and...
Category : Authors & Poets
A Free Black Man in Captivity: Reflections of Mumia Abu-Jamal
“I am a thinker, writer, activist, creative being, man, dad, husband, grandpop, and son. But just to keep it simple: I’m a free Black man living in...
The Trees Fall, the Forest Speaks: The Life of Jacques Stephen Alexis
Jacques Stephen Alexis (1922–1961) was a Haitian novelist, neurologist, and Marxist political activist whose life and work came to embody the intertwined struggles for culture,...
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...
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...
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...
Sterling Allen Brown: Harlem Renaissance Poet
“I wanted to understand my people. I wanted to understand what it meant to be a [Black]. What the qualities of life were. With their...
Langston Hughes: Poet Laureate of the Black Race
I dream a world… where wretchedness will hang its head, and joy like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream,...
Phillis Wheatley: The first published African-American female poet
Phillis Wheatley was the first published African-American female poet. She was born in West Africa around 1753, before she was kidnapped and sold into the...
Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil Scott-Heron was the African American poet, novelist, musician, and songwriter known primarily for his work as a spoken-word performer in the 1970s and 1980s....