Authors & Poets Collection
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A True Story Of Slavery -The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots
Written by John Swanson Jacobs
"Scholars say that the narrative, published outside the network of white abolitionist gatekeepers, is unique for its global perspective and its unflinching indictment of the United States."
John Jacobs was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in 1815. His mother was Delilah Horniblow, a slave of the Horniblow family who owned a local tavern. The father of John and his sister Harriet Jacobs (born 1813) was Elijah Knox. Elijah Knox, although enslaved, was in some ways privileged because he was an expert carpenter. He died in 1826.
Adam Francis Plummer’s Diary Of An Enslaved Man
Adam Francis Plummer’s chronicle is believed to be the country’s sole known example of a multigenerational journal begun by an enslaved person. He was enslaved in Maryland.
Image: Left: Adam Francis Plummer began this diary in 1841 while enslaved in Prince George's County, Maryland. After his death, his daughter Nellie Arnold Plummer continued the diary.
Middle: "This is the history of Adam Francis Plummer” begins this diary entry by Adam Francis Plummer. Below his last entry, his daughter, Nellie Arnold Plummer, writes of taking her parents’ letters to historian Carter G. Woodson, who published them in the Journal of Negro History in 1926. Plummer Family Diary, 1841.
Right: Portrait of Emily Saunders Arnold Plummer - Collection Anacostia Community Museum
Source: Collection Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution
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Daniel Alexander Payne Murray
In 1900, the Black writer and librarian Daniel Murray set out to create a bibliography listing all known works by Black Americans. Murray's goal was “to secure every book and pamphlet in existence, by a Negro Author”, exhibit them at the 1900 Paris Exposition, and then archive them at the Library of Congress.
Photograph: Daniel A. P. Murray (1852-1925) , Photographer unknown, undated. Library of Congress.
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Dr. Anna Julia Cooper - A Voice From The South By A Black Woman Of The South
In 1892 she published "A Voice From The South By A Black Woman Of The South", a collection of essays on race, gender, and education that scholars now consider the first major work of Black feminist theory.
Her gift of putting into words what she experienced and witnessed as an enslaved Black child and her perspective as a free Black woman was decades ahead of most of the ideas about race, gender and Black women's liberation.
Dr. Helen Chavis Othow
(April 21, 1932 – January 1, 2022), was an author, college professor, freedom fighter and was a descendent of John Chavis (1763-1838). Dr. Helen Othow Chavis was the great-great-great granddaughter of John Chavis. He was one of the earliest Black educators in the United States.
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Excavating the Histories of Slave-Trade and Pirate Ships
Property, Plunder and Loss - This edited volume brings new perspectives on the topic maritime archaeology of the slave trade in the Caribbean. The book focuses on shipwrecks of the slave trade in the 18th century and suggests that there is a more complex and challenging social narrative than has previously been discussed.
Editors: Dr. Lynn Brenda Harris and Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson
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Jaki Shelton Green Is The First Black Woman NC Poet Laureate
On June 21, 2018 Governor Roy Cooper announced that he has appointed poet, teacher, and community arts advocate Jaki Shelton Green to serve as North Carolina's ninth poet laureate and the first African American to be appointed as the state's Poet Laureate.
Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard (October 11, 1861 – October 21, 1924)
Josephine Delphine Henderson Heard (October 11, 1861 – October 21, 1924) was a Black American poet and teacher.
Josephine was born enslaved in Salisbury, North Carolina to enslaved parents Lafayette and Anne H. Henderson.
Her parents ensured she received a good education, sending her to Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina, and later to Bethany Institute in New York.
Kelly Starling Lyons
Kelly Starling Lyons is a children's book author whose mission is to transform moments, memories and history into stories of discovery. Her books include NEATE: Eddie's Ordeal; picture books, One Million Men and Me, Ellen's Broom, Tea Cakes for Tosh, Hope's Gift and One More Dino on the Floor and the new Jada Jones chapter book series.
Myles Andrew Julius Rhynes
was born October 22, 1885, in Dallas, Gaston County, North Carolina.
He was a poet, minister, and librarian. His book, "The echoes of a traveler's dream" (Published December 31, 1914-Library Of Congress) gives readers a view into the numerous poems he wrote throughout his life, reflecting on a path he once described as "lonely and discouraging".
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Randall Kenan
A TRIBUTE TO RANDALL KENAN: THE VOICE OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE By The NC ARTS COUNCIL
Photo description: Randall Kenan, facing camera, smiling, he has a mustache and beard. There are book shelves behind him out of focus. Photo credit, UNC Chapel Hill
Raleigh, N.C. (August 31, 2020) — Randall Kenan, an inductee into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame and a 2005 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, passed away August 28. He was 57.
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The Confessions of Nat Turner
Nat Turner, 1800?-1831, who was himself enslaved, was the leader of an anti-slavery rebellion starting on August 21, 1831 in Southampton, Virginia. "The Confessions of Nat Turner," Was published in 1831, in New York printed and published by C. Brown. This writing was fully and voluntarily made to Attorney Thomas R. Gray, in the prison where Turner was confined, and acknowledged by him to be such when read before the court of Southampton. This is the first detailed account of the rebellion, documented by Thomas R. Gray who also represented several enslaved people in their trials after the rebellion.
Source: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Call number: JWJ Zan T856 831Cb
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The Nine O'Clock Whistle: Stories of the Freedom Struggle for Civil Rights in Enfield, North Carolina
by Willa Cofield (Author), Cynthia Samuelson (Author), Mildred Sexton (Author). Part of the Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies.
When the whistle blew, all Black people had to be off the Enfield, North Carolina streets on Saturday night at 9pm.
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Uncovering Uncle William, A Search for Meaning in Art
by Dr. Shirley Davis Jones.
Dr. Shirley Jones, a niece of Harlem Renaissance sculptor William Ellsworth Artis, has recorded her findings about his life in a self-published book. Artis taught sculpture at Chadron State College, known then as Nebraska State Teachers College, from 1954 to 1964.
(Photo by Daniel Binkard/Chadron State College)
Viola Fletcher (née Ford; May 10, 1914 – November 24, 2025), also known as Mother Fletcher
"Don't Let Them Bury My Story"
Ms. Fletcher’s memoir was published in 2023. On the night of the massacre in 1921, she recalled seeing ash falling on the streets like snow. Houses burned. She passed piles of corpses, she said.
Credit: Mocha Media Inc.
Willie Ann Burnett Smith
Mrs. Willie Ann Smith, nee Burnett, was born in Goldsboro, N. C. , of pious parents. She exhibited an early love for books and was a remarkably apt pupil. Her intellectual aspirations and moral endowments soon reached a degree of prominence in the school and community to call forth frequent commendations, and gained for her the deepest interest of her teachers and the highest respect of her acquaintances.
