Who Am I?
Get to know to trailblazers, change-makers and cultural icons of the Diaspora
 Margaret Walker Alexander was born in Birmingham, AL in 1915 and went on to become a celebrated African-American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago. Her notable works include the award-winning poem For My People (1942), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition and the award-winning novel Jubilee (1966), set in the Antebellum South during the American Civil War. During her lifetime, she had the unique opportunity both to be mentored by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright and to be a mentor to writers such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou. Mrs. Walker Alexander became a literature professor at what is today Jackson State University, a historically black college in Jackson, MS, where she taught from 1949 to 1979. In 1968, Walker founded the Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of Black People (now the Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center); her personal papers are now held there and constitute one of the single largest collections of a modern black, female writer anywhere in the world. In 1976, she went on to serve as the Institute's director. She continued to visit and influence Jackson State University until her passing in 1998. 
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Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.). The purpose of the organization was "to unite all people of African ancestry of the world to one great body to establish a country and absolute government of their own". Articleshttp://www.blackbusinessnetwork.com/MarcusGarvey/ http://www.theunia-acl.com/index.php/history-red-black-green  U.N.I.A/Pan-African Flag Books
SHero Fannie Lou Hamer was born on October 6, 1917, in rural Montgomery County, Mississippi. She and her family were sharecroppers for most of her life, struggling to survive and suffering through the ills of oppressiona and discrimination. In 1962, she met civil rights activists who encouraged blacks to register to vote, and soon became a force in the movement. Hamer also worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, fighting racial segregation and injustice in the South. In 1964, she helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and went on to speak alongside the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. As a result of her staunch activism, Hamer was unjustly arrested, threatened, and beaten on a number of occasionss, but never gave up the fight. Ancestor Fannie Lou Hamer was a SHero for the South and for African Americans across the nation.  Born in Guyana, South America, ancestor Ivan Van Serima grew to become one of the foremost authorities in ancient African influence across the globe, particularly in the Americas. He was fluent in Kiswahili; he was a poet; he was a scholar, forever searching for defining moments that would provide all members of the Afrikan diaspora with a sense of pride and identity.  BOOKS by Ancestor Ivan Van Sertima: |
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