Percival Everett a prolific. unique and interesting African American writer that I met and discussed his writings on visiting the U.S in 2006 would rather not be pigeon-holed into ethnic studies and limit the possibilities for writers like him who seek to break boundaries and defy stereotyping. Suder (1983) his lyrical debut novel, about a slumping third baseman for the Seattle Mariners in major league slump, struggles both on and off the field worried over his wife's fidelity and whether his son still respects him takes time off to embark on a voyage of self-discovery to play the saxophone and to learn to fly. Amongst Everett's many more novels is Erasure which we read and discussed in a seminar on Contemporary American Literature held in Louisville University in 2006. In Erasure, we’re introduced to the protagonist, avant-garde novelist and college professor of English literature , woodworker, and fly fisherman—Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, an African-American fiction writer whose work is criticised for not being “black enough.” Reflecting Everett's own experience, the book focuses on the publishing industry's pigeon-holing of African American writers. Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and an African-American Ellison is offended and angered by the success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto an Oprah-like book club's selection of what is supposedly contemporary black experience, but which in fact presents a stereotypical image of a black writer.

Dramatist, poet and novelist, Amiri Baraka was the American writer who most effectively bridged the sometimes precarious territory between African American revisionary movements and other cultural and political movements exploring the experience and anger of African-Americans.using his writings as weapon against racism and later to advocate scientific socialism. .He has been influential in the development of contemporary black letters succeeding and building upon the work of W.E.B. DuBois and Richard Wright. Born Everett LeRoi Jones in the industrial city of Newark, New Jersey, on October 7, 1934, he is today an elder statesman of the African-American community with to his credit over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism. A poet icon and revolutionary political activist he has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively world wide in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.

Getting to know the interesting history of the prolific African American playwright, August Wilson, is itself a treat for in his life as well as in his works he is an undying chronology of the struggles and contadictions of African American lives and careers.

This is an introduction to the family background, early life and education of African American writer, dramatist, Lorraine Hansberry

This article traces the background, upbringing, early influences and education of African American writer Alice Walker who through works published in the 1970’s had a decisive effect on the literary world. Her focus on southern African-American women’s voices exploring familial cruelty, especially as triggered by societal forces such as racism, unemployment,sexism and the like helped to galvanize an explosion of African-American women’s creative and critical expressions.

A continuation of the reviewing of the long process of the induction of another African American novelist after Richard Wright into the wide world of world literature and the contentious world of American and African American literature. Ralph Ellison, more than any other Black writer, transformed African American and American literature by breaking prescribed formulas for depicting the Black American. thus bringing a fierce reality to his vision that neither Blacks nor Whites were quite ready to accept. But his truth being so eminent, neither race could deny it. Ellison will be remembered for making Blacks visible in a society where they had been invisible . Few novels of postwar American fiction have been as celebrated, written about, and analyzed as his Invisible Man. His ability to delve deeply into the chaotic and complex character of American society has rendered him a lasting place in modern literature.

Melvin Tolson an American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and playwright whose work concentrated on the experience of African Americans and includes several poetic histories lived during the Harlem Renaissance and, although he was not a participant , his work reflects its influencesand had the distinction of becoming a Poet Laureate of the West African republic of Liberia.

An American Romantic poet following the fashion of English poet, John Keats, Countee Cullen was one of the leading African American poets, associated with the black poets of the Harlem Renaissance along with Claude Mckay, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Melvin Tolson and Arna Bontemps. Cullen’s productivity then earned him an immutable place in that Black cultural rebirth already writing some of the acclaimed poems displaying his characteristic stylistic lyricism and racial sensitivity.

Ralph Ellison, more so than any other Black writer, brought change to African American and American literature by refusing to accept prescribed formulas for depicting the Black American. thus bringing a fierce reality to his vision that neither Blacks nor Whites were quite ready to accept. But his truth is so eminent, so palpable that neither race could deny it. Ellison will be remembered for making Blacks visible in a society where they had been invisible . Few novels of postwar American fiction have been as celebrated, written about, and analyzed as Ellison's Invisible Man. Many critics agree that his ability to delve deeply into the chaotic and complex character of American society has rendered him a lasting place in modern literature.This article looks at the foundation laid in his earliest beginnings for this.

James Baldwin's Life has been marked with much bittterness, frustrations and sacrifice all of which have accentuated his fiery expression as a writer articulating the racial causes of his fellow Blacks.

The long and eventful career of Pan Africanist doyen, W.E.B. Dubois is twinned and commingled with the history of the NAACP and its journal which became a vibrant and also vigilant medium for articulating and championing Black causes as well as being a catalyst for the development of all aspects of Black culture, especially so its litterature.

The history of Blacks in America has been fraught with rivalries, disputes and ideological agitations and differences amongst its intellectual and literary leaders, some of which like that between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois have degenerated into open feuds but which have at the end been productive of institutions and directions such as setting the seeds for the creation of Black nationalist associations such as the N.A.A.C.P.

This is the opening to a paper I presented at an International Conference in Portugal to mark the centennial of the African American author Richard Wright whose life and work have preoccupied my attention since my induction into this site.

The grand opening of The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center some years ago, the culmination of 10 years of planning and collaboration with Underground Railroad communities, universities, and cultural groups from across the United States ushered in years of uninterrupted revisiting of the dark days of slavery and efforts to gain and maintain freedom then and now. The opening ceremony included amongst others a "Grounds for Freedom" procession of freedom sites, an inter-ethnic Festival of Freedom, lighting the Flame of Freedom and exhibitions. This was kicked off by a live broadcast from the Freedom Center grounds by CBS Early Show complemented by other broadcasts from the NBA, ABC, MTV, Chat the Planet, C-Span as well as WCPO-9. The Freedom Center's first scholarship work a historic book published by the Smithsonian Press was then launched

Alice Walker an African American novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist, and activist who began publishing her fiction and poetry during the latter years of the Black Arts movement in the 1960s has become one of the best-known and most highly respected writers in the U.S. with her work, especially her award winning Color Purple along with that of such writers as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor, being commonly associated with the post-1970s surge in African American women's literature. .

Taking a tour with Barack Obama on his continuing stalwart efforts towards personal development and his harnessing all his skills in striving for the improvement of communities and his well-articulated desire for transcending racial, religious, political and ethnic divisions which have made his rise so easy.

A brilliant speaker, Douglass on the request of the American Anti-Slavery Society engaged in lecture tours which brought him recognition as one of America's first great black speakers and won world fame when his autobiography was published in 1845. After a triumphal twenty-one-month lecture tour in Britain, speaking on behalf of abolition, Douglass returned to the United States in the spring of 1847, resolved, to launch his own newspaper, the North Star which he conceived would be an anti-slavery paper, having realised with disappointment that several journals edited by Negroes had gone out of circulation. So Douglass aimed to establish a paper that would be appearing regularly and remain in constant service as 'a powerful evidence that the Negro was too much of a man to be held a chattel.'

Richard is now reading very widely and avidly Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, The American Mercury and other magazines. So one morning having arrived early to work and not having anything else to do, he retired to the bank lobby where the black porter was busy mopping the floor and stood by a counter looking through with much appetite the wide array of newspapers on display. One, the Memphis Commercial Appeal seemed to attract his attention most. He therefore picked it up and began reading it. He kept reading until he came upon the editorial page where he was awestruck by an article dealing with a white writer, H.L.Menckenwhich led him through a long quest in search of the works of this writer whose style he came to emulate.

An eerie film Brothers of the Borderland is being shown at the Underground Railroad Freedom Centre in Cincinnatti by the banks of the Ohio River, as a testimony of the long suffering of the Blacks from their capture, enslavement in Africa to their transportation amidst deaths and horrors to the New World to face even more woes. First, Oprah Winfrey gives a gripping and dramatic narration of the stalwart efforts of abolitionists based and operating in Ripley, Ohio, in the underground railroad escape route in daring death to give slaves a chance to escape into freedom amidst many battles from the slavers to annihilate them and retrieve their property, the escaping slaves.

This article traces the birth, background upbringing education and other formative experiences of African American female writer, Toni Morrison

This article is a take on the interests and styles that led to the tremendous success of Toni Morrison as a multiple award winning black and female writer with much appeal going well beyond a black or feminist audience

This year marks 50 years since Chinua Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart stormed the world and emerged as the most widely-read and discussed book in modern African literature. Achebe, A Nigerian described his writing as an attempt to set the historical record straight by showing that African people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans that their societies were not mindless but had a philosophy of great depth and value and beauty, that they had poetry and above all, they had dignity. This preoccupation runs not only right through this work but remains a concern throughout his literary career

Richard Wright's brother now engaged in the Works Progress Administration as well and now assuming some responsibility for the family's support, relieved Richard from wholely and singly supporting the family. Richard Wright ranks first in the postal service exam in Chicago. But in spite of his spectacular performance he turns down the offer of a permanent position at about $2,000 a year. He then moves to New York City to pursue his preferred career as a writer.

A quick look at how the world is rememberng and commemorating the birth, life, works and accomplishments of prominent African American writer Richard Wright 100 years after his birth in Natchez in 1908.

Richard Wright starts here in conceptualizing and articulating his use of literary material, literary form and how to compromise those with his social and political agenda and orientation