Richard O. Jones

Writing is not popular among African American teens. I believe it stems from slavery when Blacks were forbidden to read and write. Yet, some well-known slaves became acclaimed authors and poets such as Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglas, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Booker T. Washington. The art of self-expression is our cultural inheritance. Several African American convicts wrote best sellers from prison without any professional writing experience, for example: Elridge Cleaver "Soul on Ice" "Monster" by Kody Scott, "Soledad Brothers by George Jackson, and many more. It's unfortunate that so many Black men had to go to prison to discover their innate literary genius. African American youth are a warehouse of literary genius but are too intimidated to explore the possibilities.

When Alex Haley wrote "Roots" in the early 1970s and sold millions of copies, he showed the world that we had more than singing and dancing value. Since that time there has been hundreds of African American best selling authors but very few has been teenagers. Let's break that curse!  The lack of the ability to read and write was once used in the South to restrict Black people from voting prior to 1965. Let's begin to read and write more than enough to get by. This applies to adults as well.

Milligan Books, an African American publishing company in Los Angeles, has published several preteen and teen authors; each one is excelling in school. But that's merely a raindrop in the ocean compared to hundreds of thousands, lacking in school, who are aspiring towards music, acting, and sports careers.

The Literary Soul Food Café www.literarysoulfoodcafe.com is a group of African American self-published authors. We are dedicated to help bring to fruition several teenage or adult published authors. Such a literary accomplishment very likely might open doors for the future.

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