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February has been designated Black History Month since 1970. Black educators and students at Kent State University first proposed the designation in February 1969; former President Gerald Ford recognized it in 1976. It is now celebrated around the world.
The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the U.S. as Negro History Week and held the second week of February to honor Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass whose birthdays fell in mid-February.
As the Expression’s celebration of Black History Month, we encourage readers to become acquainted with the highly influential and critically acclaimed Black authors highlighted in Sandra Williams' article.
by Sandra Williams
TONI MORRISON (1931 - 2019)
Is an American novelist, editor and teacher, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, and was the first Black female editor for fiction at Random House. She received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved which was made into a film. Her works are praised for addressing racism and the Black American experience. Her Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. She also wrote children’s books, short fiction, non-fiction and plays. She held teaching positions at Texas Southern University, Howard University, Yale University, Bard College, Rutgers University, and the State University of New York (SUNY), and was a professor at Princeton University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison
Quotes
“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
Novels
The Bluest Eye
Sula
Song of Solomon
Tar Baby
Beloved
Jazz
Paradis
Love
A Mercy
Home
God Help the Child
MAJA ANGELOU (1928-2014)
was one of the best-known American writers, a memoirist, essayist, poet and activist.She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays movies and television shows spanning over fifty years. She received dozens of awards and more than fifty honorary degrees.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Angelou
Excerpt from “Still I Rise”
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Autobiographical Books
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Gather Together My Name
Singin and Swinin and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas
The Heart of a Woman
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
A Song Flung Up to Heaven
Mom &Me & Mom
AMANDA GORMAN (1998 - Present)
is a young American poet. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, and marginalization. She was the first poet to be named National Youth Poet Laureate. She rose to fame in 2021 for writing and delivering her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of Joe Biden, which generated international acclaim and, shortly thereafter, two of her books achieved best-seller status.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Gorman
Excerpts from “The Hill We Climb”
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another….
If only we're brave enough to see it, If only we're brave enough to be it. For there is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it.”
Books
The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough
The Hill We Climb:Poems
Change Sings: A Children's Anthem.
Something, Someday
More News from Boyertown
- "Expression" Subscriber Shares More of James Baldwin Sandra Williams offers additional perspectives offered by James Baldwin.
- The Almanac Diaries of Schwenkfelder David Schultz Diaries and journals are invaluable to historians in humanizing the past and providing the "spirit of the age" through the minds of those who lived through it.
