Black History Month beginning, I reflected on my favorite black writers. "Back in the day," when I was a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, I took the first Black History class ever offered at the school.
It was there that I discovered the works of Richard Wright, Eldridge Cleaver, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and Julian Bond. Over the years, the writings of James Baldwin took on a special meaning when I started working at an alternative school. I re-visited some of Baldwin's work, and exposed students to it.
Their positive reaction to it was a little surprising to me. Baldwin's work can be gritty, harsh. But it is also very inspiring and obviously resonated with one of the students in my class, a 15-year-old girl.
When Baldwin was about that age, he was a street preacher in New York. In school, he excelled, graduating from De Witt Clinton High School in New York in 1942. In 1944, he moved to Greenwich Village, in order to write his first novel. He did odd jobs, eventually landing a scholarship that allowed him to complete his book.
I like James Baldwin because he was a man way ahead of his time. He was unafraid to confront racism head-on, in books like "Go Tell it on the Mountain," "The Fire Next Time," and "Another Country."
James Baldwin was brilliant and controversial. Reading one of his books keeps me thinking, with a dictionary close at hand. He was unafraid to put his ideas "out there," and to risk criticism.
Baldwin was also an expatriate. Increasingly, he found life in the United States stifling, and decided to move to France. He was more accepted there. I guess France has a good reputation for nurturing American writers. I think of Hemingway, who published his first book in Paris.
Baldwin went on to be named Commander of the Legion of Honor while in France, where he died in 1987.
Another black writer I admire is Maya Angelou. When I started reading "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," I could not put it down. When I was teaching, the book was on one of the required reading lists at Tarboro High School. I wonder if it still is.
I especially admire Maya Angelou because of her many talents. She was a dancer and a choreographer. When she was chosen to read a poem at President Clinton's inauguration, it was thrilling to listen to her deep voice resonate in the cold air of that January day. At this time, she was a professor at Wake Forest University. Lucky students!
I've lost track of Ms. Angelou's whereabouts, and I'm not sure it she is still in North Carolina, but I loved how the state "claimed" her when she composed that poem for Clinton's swearing-in.
Another writer I'm crazy about is Zora Neale Hurston. I became one of her fans way after I graduated from VCU, when I worked at a small college in Georgia. Her work was studied in one of the English classes there. This was during a time while Hurston was undergoing a national resurgence of popularity, after being relatively neglected for decades.
Hurston's greatest work is considered "Their Eyes Were Watching God." I am just in awe of a writer who can write like Hurston. I love the portraits of her that were captured by Carl van Vechtan. Check them out at the American Memory website.
Sometimes I've learned about black writers from students. Terry McMillan, for example. I believe she wrote "Waiting to Exhale," which is just a delicious novel. In my opinion, Terry McMillan cannot write a bad book.
Another book that a student told me about was "For Colored Girls, Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf: A Chorepoem." The author is Ntozke Shange (given name: Paulette Williams). I believe that writers like Shange must have extra large brains. Such creativity on such a compelling level. She graduated from Barnard and as a child, people like W. E. B. Dubois, Dizzy Gillispie, and Miles Davis visited her parents' home. Shange became internationally famous when "Colored Girls" was performed on Broadway.
There's a reference book called "Black Writers: a selection of Sketches from Contemporary Authors." It's quite readable, and gives great insight into black writers, both past and present.
I'm anxious to see if colleges and universities will be having readings of black writers during Black History Month. Come to think of it, I might drop by the library on February 16th for the "read-in" and recite a few poems by another black author I recall from my VCU days, Gwendolyn Brooks. Stay tuned.
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