Hurston/Wright Foundation Honors Acclaimed Black Authors

By Queshonda Moore, AFRO

On Nov. 15, the Hurston/Wright Foundation held its ninth annual Legacy Award Ceremony at Northwest Washington, D.C. restaurant Eatonville, a popular eatery inspired by writer Zora Neale Hurston’s work. The District-based organization recognized, celebrated and awarded several African-American authors for their exceptional contributions in nonfiction, fiction and poetry.

For 20 years, the foundation – founded by Don’t Play in the Sun author Marita Golden and bibliophile Clyde McElvene – has strived to preserve and advance the past, present and future of Black writers and their literature. Named after Hurston and Black Boy author Richard Wright, the foundation is currently led by a board of directors and advisory board that includes notable scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., author Toni Morrison and Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

Honoring the Best in African American Poetry

By Jane Ammeson, NWI.com

While working on “The 100 Best African–American Poems” (Sourcebooks MediaFusion 2010; $22.99), award-winning poet Nikki Giovanni decided to cheat.

“Including just one hundred would only get me to the 1970s,” says Giovanni, a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech. “I definitely wanted to get some younger voices in too so there are actually 220 poems but they’re only numbered from one to a hundred.”

And so Giovanni’s diverse collection of poetic voices includes poems not only by Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks and Mari Evans but also Tupac Shakur.

“Anybody who knows anything about me knows that I love Tupac and I’m not the only one,” says Giovanni. “This is an incredibly important young man. Tupac’s been dead 10 years and people still treat him as if they know him. Because of the power of that young man, we had to include him. My admiration is based on his talent. How could we not honor him?”

Events to honor Black Boy author Richard Wright

by Helaine R. Williams, Arkansas Democrat Gazette

In his celebrated autobiography Black Boy, award-winning author Richard Wright chronicled the short time he spent living in Elaine and West Helena during his early-20th-century childhood.

The time in Arkansas, among myriad less-than-idyllic experiences in Wright’s youth, shaped his perspective on race and life in the South. Wright’s mother, Ella, moved with her sons to Elaine to live with her sister Maggie Hopkins, and Maggie’s husband, Silas. Wright became close to his uncle Silas, a builder and saloonkeeper, but lost him when Uncle Silas was murdered by whites in 1917. Wright, his mother, brother and aunt moved to West Helena and stayed there until his mother had a debilitating stroke that landed Wright with another uncle and aunt in Greenwood, Miss. He never returned to Arkansas to live.