All the Stories Are True: African American Writers Speak

Krik? Are you listening? Krak! Yes! This is how stories begin in Haiti, where writer Edwidge Danticat lived until she came to the United States at age 12. Her book, Krik? Krak!, is about the powerful experience of hearing stories as a child. The exhibit presents storytelling by a diverse group of African American writers. In addition to Danticat, they include science fiction writers Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler; journalist and biographer Valerie Boyd; Washington, DC poets Kenny Carroll and Delores Kendrick; children’s book authors Eloise Greenfield and Walter Dean Myers; and, writer and cartoonist Charles Johnson. A section of the exhibition features African American children's literature and original art used in books for young readers. In the words of guest curator and poet E. Ethelbert Miller, “Think of the writers presented in this exhibit as living across the street from you. This is where they work. Writing is what they do.”