How Successful Are Lady Authors? Jet’s Oct. 13, 1952 issue featured Gwendolyn Brooks, Ann Petry, Mary Elizabeth Vroman, Ellen Tarry, Era Bell Thompson and Vivian Ayers Allen, the mother of Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad.
Prince and Nikki Giovanni were born on Gwendolyn Brooks birthday. The original caption from this May 2, 1950 photo: A 32-year-old housewife and part time secretary has won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for “Annie Allen,” a ballad of Chicago Negro life. The first woman to capture one of the famed awards, she is the mother of a 9-year-old boy and the wife of Henry Blakely, partner in an auto repair shop.
