[ By: Victoria Garcia Unzueta ] Yvonne Brown (April 18, 1977 – November 26, 2021) The Project on the History of Black Writing mourns the passing of author and educator Yvonne Brown who passed away recently due to COVID-19. Yvonne Brown was the author of the acclaimed novel, Crying Girl (2019) and the founder of the Crying Girl Movement, which started as a marketing campaign […]
[ By: Christopher Peace and Jade Harrison ] The following is the third installment of a three-part series recapping the events of the Project on the History of Black Writing’s 2021 NEH Summer Institute, Hurston on the Horizon: Past, Present, and Future. Dr. Kevin Quashie, author of Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being (2021), spoke about Zora Neale Hurston’s ever-evolving work as a literary […]
[ By: Meleah Perez ] Melvin Van Peebles passed away Sept. 21, 2021, at the age of 89, but his legacy lives on in the Project on the History of Black Writing database. Many in the cinema industry regard him as a pioneer, a trailblazer, a giant, but before Van Peebles was the godfather of Black cinema, he was Van Peebles, the writer. Like many […]
[ By: Jade Harrison ] The Black Book Interactive Project (BBIP) is the digital component of the Project on the History of Black Writing (HBW). A collaborative research model, it increases the number of Black-authored texts available for scholarly engagement and teaching. Founded in 2010, based on a pilot project created by then graduate student Kenton Rambsy, now a professor at the University of Texas-Arlington, […]
[ By: Shawna Shipley-Gates ] In Part II DeAsia Paige and Shawna Shipley-Gates hold a conversation on the impact Black feminism has had on each of their lives and its continued use their everyday experiences. Paige also discusses her current work and plans for the future. *This conversation has been edited for length and clarity* Shipley-Gates: I’m glad you brought up feminism because I found […]
[ By: Shawna Shipley-Gates ] The College Diaries: How a Budding Black Feminist Found Her Voice, by HBW alum DeAsia Paige was released in 2020. When Shipley-Gates published the review, during Women’s History Month, she and Paige began an important conversation. The Project on the History of Black Writing hopes that sharing that conversation can help shed light on the culture that too many young […]
HBW joins the national commemoration of the centennial of the Tulsa Riots of 1921. Also referred to as the Tulsa Massacre, the Greenwood community in Tulsa, Oklahoma was considered a mecca of Black economic and cultural growth at the time. On May 31, 1921, “Black Wall Street” – as it was called – was attacked by a mob of armed white rioters. Local businesses, homes, schools, […]