Murder, Mystery and Mayhem Laced with Morality

Born 1989, and raised in Southern California, Brit Bennett earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford university. She went on to earn her MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan. Her debut novel The Mothers was a New York Times bestseller, and her second novel The Vanishing Half was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her essays have been featured in The New Yorker, the New York Times M...

Gregory Porter was born in Sacramento, California and raised in Bakersfield, where his mother Ruth was a nurse and a minister. He was born November 4, 1971. He is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He has twice won the Grammy award for best jazz vocal album: first in 2014 for Liquid spirit and then again in 2017 for Take me to the alley. A 1989 graduate of Highland high school, he received...

Shange was born Paulette L. Williams on October 18, 1948 in Trenton, New Jersey to an Air Force surgeon and an educator/psychiatric social worker. She graduated cum laude with her BS degree in American studies from Barnard College in New York City. In 1973 she changed her name after a failed marriage and suicide attempts. Her new name is from the Xhosa language, Ntozake, meaning “she who comes wit...

Walker was born February 9,1944, Eatonton, GA as the eighth child to, African-American sharecroppers. As a child, she had a childhood accident that left her blinded in her right eye. Because of this her mother purchased a typewriter for her to use to communicate. Walker developed a profound interest in reading and writing. Walker received a scholarship to attend Spelman college where she studied f...

Rhimes was born January, 13 197 in Chicago, Illinois, as the youngest of six children. Her mother was a college professor and her father was a university administrator. Rhimes' mother attended school to earn her PhD in education administration while raising her children.  While in HS Rhimes volunteered at a hospital where her interest for medical settings was piqued. During her time at Dartmo...

Coates was born September 30, 1975 in Baltimore, Maryland. He was educated at Howard University. He is an award-winning author, journalist, and Pulitzer Prize finalist (2016). He gained a wide readership during his time as a national correspondent at the Atlantic where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African-Americans and white supremacy. He has publis...

Lizzie Damilola Blackburn is a Nigerian- British author who is the author of Yinka, where is your huzband? Her writing journey started when she was young but was reignited in 2019 when she entered the Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition and won! This is how she met her agent, Nelle Andrew. To pen the award winning manuscript, Lizzie used her experience as inspiration to write a story of a...

Roxanne Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska October 15, 1974 to parents of Haitian descent. Roxanne’s writing appears in Best American mystery stories best American short stories, a public space, McSweeney‘s, Oxford American, American short fiction, Virginia quarterly review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed...

Nikki Giovanni was born Yolanda Cornelius Giovanni Jr. on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee. She is one of the world’s most well-known African-American poets. Her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race to social issues. She has won numerous awards including the Langston Hughes medal and the NAACP image award. She’s been no...

James Mercer Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1901 in Joplin, Missouri. He died May 22, 1967. He was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was known as one of the earliest innovators of the literary form called jazz poetry, However, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem renaissance period. Hughes grew up in a series of mid western towns, and became...

James Baldwin was born August 2, 1924 and died December 1, 1987. He was an American writer and activist. As a writer, he garnered acclaim across various mediums including essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, “Go tell it on the Mountain,” was published in 1953; decades later, Time Magazine included the novel on its list of the hundred best English-language novels released from 1923 to...

Born Everett Leroy Jones October 7, 1934, deceased- January 9, 2014 at age 79. This American writer was a poet actor, teacher, theater director, theater producer, activist. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received a PEN/Beyond Margins award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone....

Miltred Dolores Jeter was born on July 22, 1939 in Central point, Virginia. She was of African-American, European, and Native American descent. Mildred Loving, who was a reluctant activist in the civil rights movement of the 1960s when she and her husband Richard loving, successfully challenged Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage. In marrying, the couple violated Virginia’s racial integrity act...

Christian was born December 12, 1943 in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands and later moved at 15 years of age to Milwaukee Wisconsin to attend Marquette University where she graduated cum laude. She later enrolled at Columbia University. She then went on to become a lecturer at City College of the New York University of New York. There she worked in a program to promote higher education to minority and...

Whitehead was born in New York City on November 6, 1969 and is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work The intuitionist and The Underground Railroad in 2016, for which he won the 2016 national book award for fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction again in 2020 for The Nickel boys. He has also published tw...

Author Rachael M. Colby was born and raised in Jamaica, she is an award winning writer and she resides in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She is a wife, artist, work in progress, avid Tweeter-#HealthyFaith Chat Leader, Rachael writes to glorify God, encourage believers, and reach the lost. You can contact Rachael on her website, tattooitonyourheart.com -a place for seekers, followers and writers, and on...

Maya Angelou, born MarguerIte Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 and passed away May 28, 2014 was an American poet memorist, and civil rights activist. She wrote seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television show spending over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. She is best known...

Lorraine Hansberry ( May 19, 1930- January 13, 1965) earned a special place in history as the first African-American woman to have a play produced on Broadway. As the daughter of Charles Hansberry, AKA the “kitchenette king”, Hansberry grew up on Chicago’s South Side in an affluent family. Despite her family’s wealth, she experienced racism. Hansberry’s father bought a house in a racially mixed ne...

Eric Jerome Dickey was born in Memphis Tennessee on July 7 1961 and died January 3 2021. Although best known for his incredible success as an author, he started out as an engineer and software developer. After moving to LA for a software job, he realized his love for acting and stand-up comedy. As he began writing his own material he found he loved writing and began writing short stories and artic...

Zora Neale Hurston lived from January 7, 1891 to January 28, 1960. She was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the 1900s American south and published research on it. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. Hurston was born in Alabama and moved with her family...

Victoria Roberts grew up in a preacher’s home in Hammond, Indiana. After being introduced to poetry and prose in middle school, she found a passion for putting stories on the page. She’s never looked back! While pursuing a degree in Christian education, she met the man who became her husband. He is her constant support system and best friend. She currently resides in Florida where she serves in he...

Octavia E Butler was the author of several award-winning novels including Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. She was acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Her dystopian novels explored themes of Black injustice, global warming, women’s rights, and political disparity. Her work is now t...

Bessie Coleman live from 1892 to 1926. She was the first licensed black pilot in the entire world. She was never recognized for her accomplishments and as a pioneer in aviation until after her death. She went to flight school in France in 1919 and pave the way for an entire new generation of diverse aviation experts like the Tuskegee airmen, Flying Hobos, and Blackbirds.

The Selma, Alabama, native played a huge part in the 1965 Selma voting rights movement. She deserves to be recognized and celebrated for her significant role in fighting to restore and protect voting rights. Recognition was brought to the significance of her role in the Oscar nominated film, Selma.

Claudette Colvin was born in 1939. Before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 there was a brave 15-year-old who chose not to sit at the back of the bus. Although the courageous act of this woman is not celebrated, she was in fact the first woman to be detained for her resistance and for standing up for her constitutional rights.