When Black Writers arrive on the scene positive change always follows them. This morning one of my favorite writers wrote a wonderful piece here on the DAILY KOS …
Disney’s next Little Mermaid is from the Caribbean by Denise Oliver Velez. While reading this gem it dawned on me the screenwriter of this animated series for children was a Black female writer. So my thirst to promote Black writers is a new feeling of joy and satisfaction. One of the greatest Black writers was the deeply talented novelist Richard Wright who gave us Native Son. I do believe Native Son was the first blockbuster novel to fully capture the inglorious existence for black people in America. Native Son presented a clear and honest picture of a poor black family confined to a box of inequity, poverty and depravity. I have always felt Native Son is as good a novel as Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Native Son shook the heart of deep thinkers and educators all across America and it also opened the door to other black writers, like James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison.
James Baldwin was an American essayist, poet, novelist, and playwright. During the 1950’s and 1960’s he was an important voice in the Civil Rights Movement.
“The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.” --James Baldwin
John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were both avid readers of Jimmy Baldwin and Robert F. Kennedy even held private meetings in his home with Lorraine Hansberry and Jimmy Baldwin. The Kennedy Administration was serious about fixing the racial inequity in America and often Baldwin was the loud voice they most respected.
I remember as if it were yesterday when I went to James Baldwin’s funeral and Toni Morrison was one of three people who gave his eulogy.
“Jimmy guided us through treacherous paths and gave blacks the courage to face an all --white geography… this world could never be all white again.” --Toni Morrison
Today, black people are on a train going somewhere and for the most part it has been the black writers who have paid the fare and told the world who we really are.
If you Google August Wilson—FENCES you will see a picture of the great James Earl Jones holding a baseball bat in his hand. I had the good fortune to be in this amazing play and before being cast in the play I had no idea who Josh Gibson was. It was August Wilson who first told us about this remarkable baseball great. Black writers picked up on the great baseball players of the Negro League and they wrote many articles hailing Josh Gibson as one of the giants of Major League Baseball. In June,2024 Major League Baseball decided to include the Negro League Baseball records into their statistics which resulted in Josh Gibson having the best batting average in baseball history. I believe August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play—FENCES played a significant role in recognizing the Negro League of baseball and the great Josh Gibson.
“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world.”—James Baldwin
Charles Micheaux
Atlanta*