Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Black.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I hail from Blackwell, Arkansas. I was raised on the 500 acres of land bought by my great grandfather after emancipation. I began to write as a child because I loved the stories my country people told. At 18, I left Arkansas for Atlanta to attend Clark College. Upon graduation in 1988, I went on to achieve a Ph.D. in African American Studies. I read luminaries such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, W.E.B. DuBois, Sonia Sanchez, Langston Hughes, Ann Petry, and so many others that I decided, upon graduation in 1993, to try my hand at the novel craft. Now, seven books later, I’ve enjoyed tremendous success with greats such as PERFECT PEACE and THE COMING. I have a new novel on the way, titled DON’T CRY FOR ME. I’ve been a professor in the Atlanta University Center for over 25 years, and, truthfully, it’s a dream job. I meet brilliant young minds from all over the world, hungry to know who they are. These students inspire and excite me to believe that no power on earth can destroy the magnificence of Black people. I am also the founder of the Ndugu-Nzinga Nation–a rites of passage society committed to the evolution of black people’s self-love and principled existence. It is an initiation organization that transforms lives by teach the importance of character as the highest aim of life.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My life has known most every struggle conceivable. I’m the child of an alcoholic mother whom I never knew. She abandoned my brother and me in infancy then, without seeing her in between, she died suddenly when I was 16. As a child, I was enormously creative and talented. I was the church musician most all of my life, and I wrote short stories in an attempt to create the world I dreamed. This was a difficult life for a black boy in the 70s and 80s. Constructs of manhood didn’t include me at the time, so I escaped into the church where I could hide behind one whom I believed loved me–God. And my spirituality has been my rock ever since. I don’t claim a particular religion anymore; I simply search for God in everyone and everything I behold.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m a writer, a novelist. My books include THEY TELL ME OF A HOME, THE SACRED PLACE, PERFECT PEACE, TWELVE GATES TO THE CITY, LISTEN TO THE LAMBS, THE COMING, and soon DON’T CRY FOR ME. I write because I love the written word– it’s magic, its music, its ability to heal and transform and beckon life from a lifeless thing. Writing is the process by which human beings construct their spiritual reality. Words work together to create truths that then allow people to believe in what they cannot see. Words make the invisible tangible for the lost and the desperate. Language invites others to be God if they would so trust their hearts.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I’ve had many proud moments in my life: (1) receiving the Ph.D. in African American Studies, a discipline which was brand new at the time. (2) birthing, along with other elders, a nation of conscious black people who believe that everything we need we have. (3) walking into a bookstore and seeing my own novel on the shelf next to those of James Baldwin. (4) choosing to live when others sought my destruction.
Pricing:
- All my novels can be purchased on amazon
Contact Info:
- Website: danieloblack.com
- Email: babaomo@aol.com
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