Black Writers, Poets & Artists Collection

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“So I am ashamed for the black poet who says,
“I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet," as though
his own racial world were not as interesting as any
other world. I am ashamed, too, for the colored
artist who runs from the painting of Negro faces to
the painting of sunsets after the manner of the
academicians because he fears the strange unwhiteness
of his own features. An artist must be free to choose
what he does, certainly, but he must also never be
afraid to do what he must choose.”

Langston Hughes

AFRICAN AMERICAN African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of such late 18th century writers as Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, reaching early high points with slave narratives and the Harlem Renaissance, and continuing today
with authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and Walter Mosley being ranked among the top writers in the United States. Among the themes and issues explored in African American literature are the role of African Americans within the larger American society, African American culture, racism, slavery, and equality. African American

writing has also tended to incorporate within itself oral forms such as spirituals, sermons, gospel music, blues and rap. As African Americans' place in American society has changed over the centuries, so too, has the focus of African American literature. Before the American Civil War, African American literature primarily focused on the issue of slavery, as indicated by the subgenre of slave narratives.