African American Women Writers: A Top Ten List

November 11, 2017

By Nancy Kuhl

Ten fascinating books, photos, collections, archives, documents and topics…related to wriiting African American Women Writers
 
  • Correspondence with Langston Hughes, Frank Horne, her parents
  • Drafts of articles for Opportunity Magazine and an untitled short story
 
  • librarian and bibliographer who established and expanded the archival research collections of African American history and literature at Howard University
  • Research on abolitionists Sarah Remond and William C. Nell
 
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God Manuscript
 
  • Annotated script of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the first African American female playwright to have a show on Broadway.
 
  • materials regarding the journal she and Pippa Fleming started in 1989 called “Aché” which devoted itself to publishing written and visual art by and for “lesbians of African descent.”
 
  • prolific biographer, playwright, composer, and activist. Married to W.E.B Du Bois
  • Collection features copies and microforms of her some of her biographies including Frederick Douglas, Phillis Wheatley, Paul Robeson, Dr. George Washigton Carver, Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and her novel, “Zulu Heart” 
 
Angela Davis – in the James Weldon Johnson Collection
  • Statement by Angela Davis from the Marin County Jail, August 23, 1971 (JWJ Zan D2895 + 971S)
  • Get It Together: an open letter to black high school students from Angela Davis, Marin County Jail, March 23, 1971 (JWJ Zan D2895 971G)
  • Free Angela and All Political Prisoners – The Newsletter of the United Committee to Free Angela Davis (Nov. 13, 1970) ( 2013 Folio S19)
 
bell hooks – in the James Weldon Johnson Collection
  • And There We Wept: Poems by bell hooks (1978) – this copy is one of 250 printed editions of this book of poems. (JWJ Zan H763 978A)
 
Ann Petry – in the James Weldon Johnson Collection
 
Alice Dunbar Nelson – in the James Weldon Johnson Collection
  • The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899) (JWJ Zan D9125 899G)
 
Compiled by Raffi Donatich Y’19
 
Beinecke Top Tens gather (approximately) ten related items to give an at-a-glance look at some of the Library’s interesting, important, strange, compelling, beautiful holdings. To see more lists, click here: Beinecke Top Tens. To suggest a list subject, contact us: Top Ten Ideas.