People, Locations, Episodes

Haki Madhubuti, Writer, and Editor born

Haki Madhubuti

*Haki R. Madhubuti was born on this date in 1942. He is a Black poet, essayist, and editor.

Born Donald Luther Lee (Don L. Lee) in Little Rock, Arkansas, he attended the University of Illinois and received an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

Madhubuti is the author of more than twenty books, including Heart Love: Wedding & Love Poems (Third World Press,1998), Groundwork Selected Poems of Haki R. Madhubuti Don L. Lee (1996), Killing Memory, Seeking Ancestors (1987), Earthquakes and Sunrise Missions: Poetry and Essays of Black Renewal, 1973- 1983 (1984), Book of Life (1973), and Directionscore: Selected and New Poems (1971).

His prose works include Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption (1995), Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? (1990), Enemies: The Clash of Races (1978), and Dynamite Voices I: Black Poets of the 1960s (1971). He is the editor most recently of Million Man March/Day of Absence: A Commemorative Anthology (1996). Among his honors and awards are an American Book Award (1991) and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is currently a professor of English and Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University.

Madhubuti is a much sought-after poet and lecturer. He has assembled workshops and been a guest/keynote speaker at thousands of colleges, universities, libraries, and community centers in the U.S. and abroad. A proponent of independent Black institutions, Madhubuti is the founder, publisher, and chairman of the board of Third World Press (1967), co-founder of the Institute of Positive Education/New Concept School (1969), and co-founder of Betty Shabazz International Charter School (1998) in Chicago, Illinois. He is also a founder and board member of the National Association of Black Book Publishers, a founder and chairman of the board of The International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, and founder and director of the National Black Writers Retreat.

Currently, Haki R. Madhubuti is the Distinguished University Professor, founder, and director emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing and director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Chicago State University.

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