Congratulations to Lawrence P. Jackson, whose book The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960 has won the 2012 BCALA Literary Award in the Nonfiction Category. This award recognizes excellence in adult fiction and nonfiction by African American authors published in 2011. According to the BCALA press release:

“The Indignant Generation is a fascinating exploration of the development of African American literature after the Harlem Renaissance to the modern day Civil Rights Movement. Lawrence P. Jackson offers readers rare insights into the lives of key players who contributed to the breadth of writing that flourished between 1934 and 1960. From Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes to James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, Jackson highlights the unique challenges faced by the writers during the time of the Great Depression, Jim Crow, World War II and the Cold War. Dozens of illustrations and photographs enhance this stunning work that celebrates African American artistic and intellectual achievement in writing. Professor Jackson teaches English and African American Studies at Emory University.”

Congratulations to Lawrence P. Jackson, whose book The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934–1960 is picking up accolades left and right. The book has won the 2011 William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association, which recognizes “an outstanding scholarly study of black American literature or culture.”

“In this magisterial narrative history of African American literature running from the end of the Harlem Renaissance to the beginning of the civil rights period, Lawrence P. Jackson expands the archive for assessing African American writing during a period that has often been reduced to protest writing. Jackson places writers into fresh contexts of cohorts (critics and editors included) and threads a clear narrative line through three heady decades jam-packed with African American authors publishing in a variety of genres and venues. Jackson is excellent on the important influence of the Communist Party, on mid-twentieth-century black literary culture, and on issues of publishing and reception. Beautifully written and rich in historical detail, The Indignant Generation should quickly become a standard work in twentieth-century African American studies and United States publishing history.”

Jackson’s work is also a finalist for the 2011 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction, from the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

“The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award™ is the first national award presented to published writers of African descent by the national community of Black writers. This award consists of prizes for the highest quality writing in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry.”

Edwidge Danticat’s collection of essays, Create Dangerously, originally published in cloth by PUP and now in paperback by Vintage, has been selected for the One Book, One Philadelphia reading program. What this means is that the Free Library of Philadelphia is encouraging all Philadelphians (Is that what they are called?) to read the book and will sponsor a series of events — readings, lectures, film screenings — to foster a dialogue around the issues in the book.

Create Dangerously is a beautiful, moving book that presents Edwidge’s thoughts on what it means to be a writer; what it means to be an immigrant writer; and what it means to be an immigrant writer, writing outside of your homeland. I love the title of this article announcing the selection: “Creating dangerously, reading collectively”, as it really captures one of the themes in the book: an author may write at their own peril in order to bring important ideas about human rights to a global audience.

While I know many will pick up the paperback for economic reasons, I hope some people will opt to purchase the hardback edition. It is such an elegant and provocative package — with a printed case and a little slip of a dust jacket that is hand-printed — that it would be a lovely addition to anyone’s personal library (especially since it can be found on some online retailers for a mere $3-$4 more than the paperback!).

In recent weeks, we’ve had tremendous good news. Not only has Create Dangerously won OCM Bocas Prize for Nonfiction, but author Edwidge Danticat was announced as the winner of the Harold Washington Literary Award joining earlier winners like Barbara Ehrenreich (2010), Walter Mosley (2007), Grace Paley (2002), Isabel Allende (1996), and Ralph Ellison (1992). This is an amazing honor and we extend our congratulations to Edwidge!

I don’t know how I missed this video before today, as this was taped in November. It’s still worth a watch now:

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Create Dangerously yet, now’s a great time. The American Crawl is reading the book over the next few weeks and you can follow along in sort of a virtual book club.

If you want to get a jump start, try watching this video interview with GritTV:

More GRITtv

BOOK FACT: African American fraternal orders waged legal fights to defend their right to exist—fights that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where African Americans ultimately prevailed. Involving some of the lawyers who later went on to work with the NAACP, this struggle won some of the major victories in the quest for equal civil rights in America.

What a Mighty Power We Can Be:
African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Racial Equality
By Theda Skocpol, Ariane Liazos, & Marshall Ganz

The authors demonstrate how African American fraternal groups played key roles in the struggle for civil rights and racial integration.

From the nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, millions of American men and women participated in fraternal associations–self-selecting brotherhoods and sisterhoods that provided aid to members, enacted group rituals, and engaged in community service. Even more than whites did, African Americans embraced this type of association; indeed, fraternal lodges rivaled churches as centers of black community life in cities, towns, and rural areas alike. Using an unprecedented variety of secondary and primary sources–including old documents, pictures, and ribbon-badges found in eBay auctions–this book tells the story of the most visible African American fraternal associations.

We invite you to read chapter one online:
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8267.html

Also available on the Zocalo site.

This photograph was taken at the mid-November launch for Lawrence P. Jackson’s new book, The Indignant Generation. Thank you to the New York Institute of Humanities for playing host and assembling a wonderful audience. We can’t imagine a better place or time to launch this new project. To view a video of Jackson describing the meticulous research he conducted while writing the book, please visit this web site.

Shown in the picture, left to right, are Mark Greif, Darryl Pinckney, Lawrence Jackson, and Rhoda Levine.

This was taped earlier this morning. Edwidge will also be on Leonard Lopate this afternoon.

Edwidge Danticat will be interviewed on Tavis Smiley this Friday evening. I hope you have a chance to tune in to hear her discuss her new book Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.

Last Friday, I posted a picture of two gentlemen and asked readers to identify the person holding a copy of The Indignant Generation. As promised, I am revealing the answer here: Lawrence P. Jackson is shown speaking to David Wilson who is the President of Morgan State University, a school both of Jackson’s parents attended in the 1950s.

Speaking before a luncheon crowd of 100 at Morgan State University’s Student Center, Baltimore native Jackson impressed the crowd with a history lesson, a Morgan State University history lesson. Jackson, Professor of English and African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, spoke for an hour about the impactful careers of Morgan English teachers Nick Aaron Ford and Waters Turpin. Jackson cataloged the travails and triumphs of each men’s careers during the era of segregation. The lecture began with a shocking account of the violence black professors faced during the 1940s. Ford and Turpin both resisted the oppressive system. Jackson claimed that Dr. Ford, who served Morgan from 1946 through the 1970s, possessed a “black critical independent spirit.” Novelist Waters Turpin grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and published important works in the second half of the 1930s. Jackson suggested that Turpin’s obscurity today was due to his artistic vision which was too elegant for the Marxists and too militant for the assimilationists.

The lecture was drawn from Jackson’s new book The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934-1960. The 600 page literary and cultural history is being published by Princeton University Press in mid-November. The audience included Morgan’s new president David Wilson, the school’s provost T. Joan Robinson, and the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Burnie Hollis Jr. Agnes Edwards, a Morgan graduate and former student of both Drs. Ford and Turpin, said, “I didn’t know any of that, but I am glad that I do now.” When asked which portions of the new research he would use, Dean Hollis, another former student and friend of both men, smiled broadly and said, “All of it!”

**This text taken from Emory University’s event press release.