Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, composer, playwright, editor and publisher known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best-known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York.
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the incredible accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
Dambudzo Marechera was a Zimbabwean novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. His short career produced a book of stories, two novels, a book of plays, prose, and poetry, and a collection of poetry. His first book, a fiction collection entitled The House of Hunger (1978), won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979. Marechera was best known for his abrasive, heavily detailed and self-aware writing, which was considered a new frontier in African literature, and his unorthodox behaviour at the universities from which he was expelled despite excelling in his studies.
Dudley Randall was an African-American poet and poetry publisher from Detroit, Michigan. He founded a pioneering publishing company called Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African-American writers, among them Melvin Tolson, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Etheridge Knight, Margaret Walker, and others.
Umbra was a collective of young black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side that was founded in 1962.
Third World Press (TWP) is the largest independent black-owned press in the United States, founded in 1967 by Haki R. Madhubuti, with early support from Johari Amini and Carolyn Rodgers. Since the 1960s, the company has focused on publishing culturally progressive and political books of fiction and non-fiction, poetry, and cross-genre work.
Kamaria S. Muntu is a Black Feminist poet, writer and arts activist. She is also Editor and Founder of Femficatio Literary Magazine.
Dark Matter is an anthology series of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000), won the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The second book in the Dark Matter series, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2005. A forthcoming third book in the series is tentatively named Dark Matter: Africa Rising. This was finally published at the end of 2022 under the title Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, from Tor Books.
Winter in America is a studio album by American vocalist Gil Scott-Heron and keyboardist Brian Jackson. It was recorded in September to October 1973 at D&B Sound Studio in Silver Spring, Maryland and released in May 1974 by Strata-East Records. Scott-Heron and Jackson produced the album in a stripped-down fashion, relying on traditional African and R&B sounds, while Jackson's piano-based arrangements were rooted in jazz and the blues. The subject matter on Winter in America deals with the African-American community and inner city in the 1970s.
Thomas Covington Dent was an African-American poet and writer. Dent came from a prominent and socially aware family. Due to this, he was able to receive multiple levels of education at differing institutions. He attended college at Morehouse College and served as editor-in-chief of the Maroon Tiger. Upon graduation, Dent enrolled in graduate studies at Syracuse University before joining the army for a two year stint. He then moved to New York and worked towards the advancement of civil rights. Later, he returned home to New Orleans and began cultivating and mentoring young African American writers.
Beverly Matherne is an American poet, translator, and editor, specializing in free verse poetry, prose poetry, short short fiction, and lyric essay.
The Negro Digest, later renamed Black World, was a magazine for the African-American market. Founded in November 1942 by publisher John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing Company, Negro Digest was first published locally in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine was similar to the Reader's Digest but aimed to cover positive stories about the African-American community. The Negro Digest ceased publication in 1951 but returned in 1961. In 1970, Negro Digest was renamed Black World and continued to appear until April 1976.
Wangui wa Goro is a Kenyan academic, social critic, researcher, translator and writer based in the UK. As a public intellectual she has an interest in the development of African languages and literatures, as well as being consistently involved with the promotion of literary translation internationally, regularly speaking and writing on the subject. Professor Wangui wa Goro is a writer, translator, translation studies scholar and pioneer who has lived and lectured in different parts of the world including the UK, USA, Germany and South Africa.
Carl LeBlanc is an American guitarist and four-string banjo player. LeBlanc is most striking for his work in both avant garde jazz and traditional jazz—being the only musician to work with famed afrofuturist keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra and Preservation Hall.
John Gery is an American poet, critic, collaborative translator, and editor. He has published seven books of poetry, a critical work on the treatment of nuclear annihilation in American poetry, two co-edited volumes of literary criticism and two co-edited anthologies of contemporary poetry, as well as, a co-authored biography and guidebook on Ezra Pound's Venice.
Rodolphe Lucien Desdunes was a Louisiana Creole civil rights activist, poet, historian, journalist, and customs officer primarily active in New Orleans, Louisiana.
John Warner Smith is an American poet and educator. He formerly held the position as the Louisiana Poet Laureate. His poems have appeared in numerous published works.
Fatima Shaik is an Indian-American and African-American author and former journalist. Her work explores contemporary social issues, especially that of the "African-American experience."
Ed Frank was an American jazz and rhythm and blues pianist who performed and recorded for more than forty years.
Marlene Green was a Canadian community activist, educator, and NGO field worker. She is best known as the founder of the Black Education Project, a volunteer-run organization created to address racial inequalities in Toronto's education system.
