Happy 90th, Louise Meriwether! ("Daddy Was a Numbers Runner," 1970)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

She lives in NYC.

http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/louise-jenkins-meriwether-1923
(brief bio and photo)

http://theharlemwritersguild.org/photogallery/new-52.jpg
(photo from the Harlem Writers' Guild: - "Our distinguished Leading members Louise Meriwether(seated) Sarah Wright, Rosa Guy, Walter Dean Myers and Grace F. Edwards.")

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=%22louise+meriwether%22+&btnG=Search+Images
(photos & covers)

http://www.answers.com/topic/louise-meriwether
Excerpt:
"Three juvenile readers on historical black figures were published in the 1970s: The Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls (1971), The Heart Man: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1972), and Don't Take the Bus on Monday: The Rosa Parks Story (1973). Whether for adult or juvenile reading, each work includes some aspect of African American life not usually found in American history texts."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Meriwether

http://www.pmc.edu/solstice-mfa-announces-commencement-speaker-louise-meriwether
(event in 2010)

Daddy Was a Number Runner (1970, introduction by James Baldwin)

"Francie, aged 12, watches as her father loses his job and, out of desperation, begins running numbers. When he leaves the family, her mother must go on government assistance. Francie's brother winds up in jail, while Francie herself struggles to maintain her self-possession in an increasingly chaotic and hostile world."

The Freedom Ship of Robert Smalls (1971)
"A brief biography of the slave who escaped to freedom with his family and other runaway slaves on a captured Confederate gunboat."

The Heart Man: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams (1972)
"A brief biography of the black surgeon who performed the first successful heart operation in 1893."

Don't Ride the Bus on Monday: The Rosa Parks Story (1973)
"A brief biography of the Alabama black woman whose refusal to give up her seat on the bus marked the beginning of the civil rights movement."

Francie's Harlem (1988)

Fragments of the Ark (1994)
"In the tradition of Alex Haley's Roots, Fragments of the Ark tells the heroic story of Peter Mango, a South Carolina slave whose daring Civil War escape from Confederate Charleston to the Union Navy brings him face-to-face with his freedom--and still closer to his own soul."

Shadow Dancing (2000)
"Glenda is a journalist at the top of her profession. When she falls in love with a charismatic theatre director who is also a nightmare-haunted Vietnam vet, Glenda must draw on all her strengths if the relationship is to survive."


She also wrote the introduction to Harriet Jacobs' " Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl : The Givens Collection."


Lenona.

[Lenona]

From June 17th, 2021:

It’s Not Too Late to Discover Louise Meriwether

"The author, 98, wrote one of the classic novels of Depression-era Black life, 'Daddy Was a Number Runner,' and its themes still resonate today."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/17/books/louise-meriwether.html

(It's very long, with very nice photos.)