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...
Category : Literature
Black authors, poets and playwrights. Literary Quotes and Poems.
In Praise of the Ancestors by Mazisi Kunene
“It is up to the living to keep in touch with the dead. Man’s power don’t end with death. We just move on to another...
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
About eight years ago, I discovered Waiting for the Rain by Charles Mungoshi during a visit to the library. The novel’s beauty and wisdom captivated...
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...
“I’ve come to take you home”: A Tribute to Sarah Baartman by Diana Ferrus
“I’ve Come to Take You Home” is one of the most significant political poems of the late twentieth century. The poem—an act of restoration and...
10 Poems By Langston Hughes You Should Know
Langston Hughes, considered the unofficial Poet Laureate of African-Americans, was a prolific writer, who published ten volumes of poetry. One of Hughes’s most widely anthologized...