15 Dates of Importance, 1986 – 1995

[By Kenton Rambsy]

 

1986 - A second adaptation of Richard Wright’s Native Son is made with Victor Love playing the role of Bigger Thomas and Oprah Winfrey playing his mother, Mrs. Thomas. 

1988 – Toni Morrison wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel Beloved.

1989 – Donna Deitch directs the television mini-series The Women of Brewster’s Place based on Gloria Naylor’s novel. The mini-series stars Oprah Winfrey, Robin Givens, and Jackée.

1990 - Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley is published.

1990 - Middle Passage by Charles Johnson is published.

1990 – Charles Johnson is awarded the National Book Award for Fiction for Middle Passage. During his acceptance speech, Johnson acknowledged the 1953 winner of the award Ralph Ellison, who was in the audience. 

1992- Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan is published.

1993 – Ernest J Gaines A Lesson Before Dying is published by Knopf Publishing group.

1993 - Ernest J Gaines A Lesson Before Dying wins National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction

1993 – Toni Morrison wins the Nobel Prize for literature.

1994 – Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat is published.    

1995 – Carl Franklin directs Devil in a Blue Dress based on Walter Mosley’s novel. The film stars Denzel Washington. 

1995 – Forest Whitaker directs Waiting to Exhale based on Terry McMillan’s novel. The film stars Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett.

1995 - Carl Franklin directs Devil in a Blue Dress based on Walter Mosley’s novel. The film stars Denzel Washington.

1995- Octavia Bulter becomes the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.

[Related: Timeline Series—African American Novel History]