Heavenly belated birthday wishes Sutton E. Griggs! Born June 19, 1872, Sutton Elbert Griggs was an American author, Baptist minister, academic administrator, educator, publisher, and social activist. He is best known for his novel Imperium in Imperio, a utopian work that envisions a separate African-American state within the United States. He passed away in 1933. Some of his notable works:
Belated birthday wishes Angela Johnson! Born June 18, Angela Johnson is an award-winning children’s and young adult author, poet, and an 2003 McArthur Fellow. Here are just a few of the 40 books she has written since she began writing in 1989.
Happy birthday Velma Maia Thomas! Born June 18, Velma Maia Thomas is an author, and historian. She is also the creator and curator of the Black Holocaust Exhibit in Atlanta, Georgia. Here are a few of her notable works:
Heavenly birthday wishes James Weldon Johnson! Born June 17, 1871, James Weldon Johnson was an author, poet, civil rights activist and co-composer of Lift Every Voice and Sing. He died in 1938.
Heavenly happy birthday, Marita Bonner! Born June 16, 1899, Marita Bonner was an African American writer, essayist, and playwright who is commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She passed away in 1971.
Heavenly belated birthday wishes George Wylie Henderson! Born June 14, 1904, George Wylie Henderson was an African American author of the Harlem Renaissance. He passed away in 1965.
Happy birthday John Edgar Wideman! Born June 14, John Edgar Wideman is an African American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus on the African-American experience. A few of his notable books are:
Belated happy birthday Porsha Olayiwola! Born June 11, Porsha Olayiwola is native of Chicago who writes, lives and loves in Boston. Olayiwola is a writer, performer, educator and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, woman, and queer diasporas. She is an Individual World Poetry Slam Champion and the founder of the Roxbury Poetry Festival. Olayiwola is Brown University’s 2019 Heimark Artist -In -Residence as well as the 2021 Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. She is a 2020 poet laureate fellow with the Academy of American poets.
Heavenly blessed birthday wishes Elizabeth Josephine Brown! Born June 12, 1839 Elizabeth Josephine Brown was the daughter and biographer of escaped African-American slave William Wells Brown and his first wife Elizabeth Schooner. Josephine’s account, Biography of an American Bondman, by His Daughter, was published in Boston by R. F. Wallcut in 1856. She died in 1874.
Happy birthday Frank X. Walker! Born June 11, Frank X. Walker is an African American poet from Danville, Kentucky. Walker coined the word “Affrilachia”, signifying the importance of the African American presence in Appalachia: the “new word … spoke to the union of Appalachian identity and the region’s African-American culture and history”. He was the winner of the 2025 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection for his book Load in Nine Times.
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