Zora Neale Hurston, known for her audacious spirit and sharp wit, was a talented and prolific writer and a skilled anthropologist from the Harlem (New York) Renaissance to the Civil Rights Era. Born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, she grew up in the … Read MoreZora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Dr. Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander’s contributions to American letters—four volumes of poetry, a novel, a biography, and numerous critical essays—mark her as one of this country’s most gifted black intellectuals. These accomplishments are even more remarkable given that she achieved most of them after 1943 … Read MoreMargaret Walker (1915-1998)
Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was a writer, teacher, and activist who championed education for African Americans and women. Born into bondage in 1858 in Raleigh, North Carolina, she was the daughter of an enslaved woman, Hannah Stanley, and her owner, George Washington Haywood. In 1867, … Read MoreAnna Julia Haywood Cooper (1858-1964)
The unusual academic career of Rufus Paul Turner, born on Christmas Day 1907, was foreshadowed when the then 15-year-old Houston, Texas native began experimenting with crystal devises. At age 17 he wrote the first of his nearly 3,000 articles, mostly having to do with radio … Read MoreRufus P. Turner (1907-1982)
Nichelle Nichols was born Grace Nichols on December 28, 1932, in Robbins, Illinois. Discovered by Duke Ellington at the age of 15, she began her career as a singer touring the country with his band. After the tour was over, Nichols worked in Los Angeles … Read MoreNichelle Nichols (1932-2022)
James Arthur Baldwin, fiction writer, essayist, dramatist, and poet, was born on August 2, 1924 in Harlem, New York during the Harlem Renaissance. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx in 1942, he began his formal career as a writer. Baldwin was … Read MoreJames Baldwin (1924-1987)
Susie Sumner Revels, a daughter of Hiram Revels, the first U.S. Senator of African descent, arrived in Seattle, Washington from Mississippi in 1896. Her reason, she stated, during a 1936 Washington Pioneers Project interview, was “the man she was going to marry was here.” He … Read MoreSusie Revels Cayton (1870-1943)
Best-selling author, social critic and influential literary figure Richard Wright was born on September 4, 1908, to Nathan Wright and Ella Wilson, both children of slaves, on a plantation near Roxie, Mississippi. His father was an illiterate sharecropper and his mother was a schoolteacher. Finding … Read MoreRichard Wright (1908-1960)
Born on March 1, 1913 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Ralph Waldo Ellison entered the world with a name that almost presumed for him a literary career. But his road to and in literature would be torturous. Many of the initial comforts enjoyed by Ellison vanished … Read MoreRalph Ellison (1913-1994)
Nella Larsen, nurse, librarian, and, writer, was born Nella Marie Larsen in Chicago in 1891 to a Danish mother and a black West Indian father. Knowing little about her father after his death when she was two years old, she was reared in the home … Read MoreNella Larsen (1891-1963)
