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Her pen name was J California Cooper, but Joan Cooper wrote more than 17 plays, novels and short stories. Born in Berkeley, California in 1931, she tried to be careful not to give out too much personal information.

She was the Black Playwright of the Year which led to other amazing things. Alice Walker advised her to try her hand at writing books and it turned out to be a good thing. Cooper won American Book Award for Homemade Love, James Baldwin Writing Award, and the Literary Lion Award from the American Library Association.

Her short story Funny Valentines was made into a television movie starring Alfre Woodard and Loretta Devine.

“I’m a Christian” Cooper told a newspaper, “That’s all I am. If it came down to Christianity and writing, I’d let the writing go. God is bigger than a book,” Cooper said in the Washington Post in 2000.

She died at the age of 82 in 2014.

Born in the Senegal/Gambia region of West Africa, Phyllis Wheatley was probably about seven years old when she was capture by slavers. Because she was small and thought to be ill, she was sold to a tailor and his family.

The Wheatley family of Boston taught their young slave how to read and write, once they saw she had a desire to learn. She began writing poetry, which they encouraged.

Her first book of poetry was published in 1773, when she and one of her slave owners went to London to promote her work. She was introduced to prominent people, one of which took an interest in her work and helped her publish it. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral brought fame to her in the UK and the USA.

The Wheatley’s emancipated Phyllis after her book was published. She later married John Peters, a free African American man. They struggle with poverty and giving birth to a child. She died December 5, 1784 at the age of 31.

James Baldwin Video

James Baldwin was an American and activist born in 1924 and educated in Harlem. Unhappy with segregation and the overall treatment of African Americans, Baldwin moved to Paris France at the age of 24.

His work includes Go Tell It On The Mountain, The Amen Corner, If Beale Street Could Talks and many more.

This Week is about movies. We will take a quick glance at what some amazing African American actors have done. Today meet Dorothy Dandridge.

Dorothy Dandridge was an entertainer and actress that starred on stage and screen in the late 1940s and 1950s. She performed at the Cotton Club at the age of 16 with her sisters as a trio. She starred in a series of low budget films in the early 1940s like Drums in the Congo and The Hit Parade of 1943.

Carmen Jones, a film based off the opera Carmen, made her a star and earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. It was the first time an African American had been nominated for a leading actor role. She was also one of the first actresses to play roles where there were interracial relationships.

She struggled for good acting parts, even going to Europe in hopes of landing better roles. She did not find much.

Her last important movie was Porgy and Bess (1959) with Sidney Poitier, Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis, Jr. By this time, Dandridge had perfected the role of playing the bad black woman who refused to go right.

In 1965, Dandridge died of an overdose of anti depression pills.

This information is from Donald Bogle’s Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks.