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Article

Detter, Thomas  

Eric Gardner

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

writer, activist, minister, doctor, and businessman, was born in Washington, D.C., or nearby Maryland, probably to Thomas Detro (or Detrow), a stonemason, and his wife, Eleanor. Detter was educated in Washington, D.C., and was apprenticed to a shoemaker. Little is known of his early years. In 1852 he traveled aboard the steamer John L. Stephens to San Francisco, where he worked as a barber before moving to Sacramento. He quickly became active in northern California's black community and was Sacramento's delegate to the state Colored Conventions of 1855, 1856, and 1857; the 1855 Convention named him to the Executive Board.

Apparently frustrated by the lack of civil rights progress in California, he left the state in late 1857 Over the next decade he traveled throughout Idaho Washington and Oregon spending extended periods in areas around Boise Walla Walla Idaho City ...

Article

Dongala, Emmanuel Boundzéki  

Kahiudi C. Mabana

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Congolese writer and chemist, was born on 14 July 1941 to a Congolese father and a central African mother. He was nineteen when Congo-Brazzaville achieved independence, which allowed him to refine his views on history and the surrounding world.

After secondary school in the Congo, Dongala embarked for the United States, where he obtained a BA in chemistry at Oberlin College and an MA at Rutgers University. He completed a doctorate in organic chemistry in France. Returning to his country, he worked as a chemistry professor at the Université Marien Ngouabi in Brazzaville, where he passed a large part of his life. But he spent most of his time on literature and theater. For years he ran the Théâtre de l’Éclair in Brazzaville, until the political troubles that arose in the Congo forced him into exile in 1998 First he went to France where to the surprise of all involved ...

Article

Fisher, Rudolph  

Michael Maiwald

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
07 April 2005
Published online:
01 December 2006

Rudolph Fisher was born in Washington, D.C., the son of John Wesley Fisher, a clergyman, and Glendora Williamson. Fisher was raised in Providence, Rhode Island, and in 1919 received his B.A. from Brown University, where he studied both English and biology. Fisher's dual interests, literature and science, were reflected in his achievements at Brown, where he won numerous oratorical contests and was granted departmental honors in biology; the following year he received an M.A. in biology. In 1920 Fisher returned to Washington to attend Howard University Medical School. He graduated with highest honors in June 1924 and interned at Washington's Freedmen's Hospital. Later that year Fisher married Jane Ryder, a local teacher, with whom he had one son.

When Fisher moved to New York in 1925 he made rapid advances in both of his careers as a doctor and a writer As a bright ...

Article

Fisher, Rudolph  

A. B. Christa Schwarz

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

writer and doctor. Moving to Harlem in the mid-1920s, Rudolph John Chauncey Fisher arrived exactly when the Harlem Renaissance, the first African American cultural movement, began to flourish. Born in Washington, D.C., the son of Glendora Williamson Fisher and John W. Fisher, a Baptist minister, he succeeded in combining a medical with a literary career. Fisher's best-known short story, “The City of Refuge,” which he created while studying at Howard University Medical School (1920–1924), was published in the prestigious white journal the Atlantic Monthly in 1925. The same year Fisher followed the call of leading Harlem Renaissance figures to come to Harlem, where he began to work as an X-ray specialist and ventured on a short-lived but prolific writing career, which saw him turn into one of the most popular writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

Desiring to act as a literary interpreter of Harlem Fisher ...

Article

Jefferson, Roland Spratlin  

Justin David Gifford

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

forensic psychiatrist, novelist, and filmmaker, was born in Washington, D.C., to Devonia Jefferson, a teacher and playwright, and Bernard Jefferson, a judge. At an early age, Jefferson moved with his family to Los Angeles where he attended integrated public schools. Raised in a family that discouraged him from pursing a career as a writer, Jefferson studied anthropology in college, earning his BA from the University of Southern California in 1961. In 1965 Jefferson earned his MD from Howard University and became a practicing physician in Los Angeles. In 1966, he married a teacher named Melanie L. Moore, with whom he would eventually have four children, Roland Jr., Rodney, Shannon, and Royce. Between 1969 and 1971 he served as a captain and psychiatrist at Lockborne Air Force Base in Columbus Ohio It was during this time that he ...

Article

Ole, Kulet, Henry  

Egara Kabaji

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

popular Kenyan writer, has attained considerable success as a fiction writer. He may be classified as belonging to the second generation of Kenyans writers after that of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Meja Mwangi, Bernard Chahilu, and Micere Githae Mugo, among others. His works focus mainly on the issues of identity and culture clash among the indigenous Maasai people of East Africa. He utilizes the biographical mode to explore the politics and history of his people. Ole Kulet seems to suggest that the Maasai culture, though in need of change, includes positive aspects that need to be preserved. He sees his works first as tools for educating his people and does not attach much importance to the monetary value of his writing.

Ole Kulet’s novel Is It Possible? (1971 revolves around a young man Henry Lerionka That the protagonist shares a first name with the author reveals the autobiographical nature ...

Article

Peters, Lenrie  

Ernest Cole

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Gambian writer and medical practitioner, was born Lenrie Wilfred Leopold Peters in Bathurst, now Banjul, on 1 September 1932 He was the third child and first son of Lenrie and Kezia Peters His two older siblings are Bijou Peters Bidwell and Florence Peters Mahoney Lenrie was followed by two other children his younger sister Ruby Peters and brother Dennis Alaba Peters The family history of the Peterses goes beyond the borders of the Gambia As descendants of liberated Africans he could trace his family history to Sierra Leone and the Yoruba culture in Nigeria In his unpublished eulogy for Lenrie Peters Tijan M Sallah traces the Peterses ancestry to the Maxwells who were the first African graduates of Oxford University He adds that T he Maxwells were by all tests Afro Victorians and therefore among Africa s early westernized elites The elder Maxwell was a Sierra Leonean of Yoruba ...

Article

Petry, Ann  

Jennifer Jensen Wallach

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
09 February 2009
Published online:
01 December 2009

novelist, short-story writer, and children's book author. Ann Lane grew up in the white, middle-class town of Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The daughter of a pharmacist, she initially followed in her father's footsteps, earning a degree in pharmacy from the Connecticut College of Pharmacy in 1931 and then working in the family drugstore for seven years. In 1938 she married the writer George Petry and moved to Harlem to pursue a writing career.

In Harlem she worked as a reporter for the Amsterdam News and the People's Voice. She also began volunteering at an after-school program for latchkey children. This exposure to poverty and the difficulties faced by urban black women had a profound influence on her writing.

In the 1940s Petry published several short stories in periodicals including Phylon and The Crisis. A grant from Houghton Mifflin allowed her to write her first novel, The Street ...

Article

Petry, Ann  

Cynthia A. Callahan

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
15 March 2013
Published online:
31 May 2013

author and pharmacist, was born Ann Lane in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The youngest daughter of Peter C. Lane, a pharmacist and proprietor of two drugstores, and Bertha James, a licensed podiatrist, Ann Lane grew up in a financially secure and intellectually stimulating family environment. After graduating from Old Saybrook High School, she studied at the Connecticut College of Pharmacy (now the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy) and earned her graduate in pharmacy degree in 1931 For the next seven years Lane worked as a pharmacist in the family business Her family s long history of personal and professional success served as the foundation for her own professional accomplishments She cherished the family s stories of triumph over racism and credited them with having a message that would help a young black child survive help convince a young black child that black is truly beautiful Petry ...

Article

Vassanji, Moyez Gulamhussein  

Tina Steiner

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Kenyan writer and physicist, was born in Nairobi, Kenya, to Indian parents, but grew up in Tanzania. When he was nineteen, he left the University of Nairobi on a scholarship to study physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. He graduated with a PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1978 he settled in Toronto, Canada, where he still lives with his Tanzanian-born wife, Nurjehan, and his two sons, Anil and Kabir. From 1978 to 1980 he held a postdoctoral fellowship at Atomic Energy of Canada, and from 1980 to 1989 he worked as a researcher at the University of Toronto.

While at the University of Toronto Vassanji started to write short stories and began working on his first novel He also developed a keen interest in medieval Indian history and literature and together with his wife cofounded the multicultural literary ...

Article

Zanga, Tsogo, Delphine  

Kim Miller

Article

Publication History:

Published in print:
08 December 2011
Published online:
30 September 2012

Cameroonian nurse, politician, and writer of fiction, was born in Lomie, Cameroon, in 1935. She attended the Douala secondary school for girls until 1955. Tsogo then moved to Toulouse, France, where she earned a nursing diploma. In 1960 she returned to Cameroon where she worked as a nurse in several different hospitals. She has three daughters.

Her medical work coincided with a notable political career, and Tsogo was one of the first African women to reach some of the top positions in politics. She rose to power in large part because of her work in women’s associations and her unwavering commitment to working on women’s issues. In 1964, Tsogo was elected as the national president of the Council of Cameroonian Women, a position she held until 1985. She became a member of Parliament in 1965 and held that position until 1972 She was the first ...