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68   November 1971 Black World

Second Annual Awards Banquet

BLACK ACADEMY OF ARTS & LETTERS
September 1971

Photos: At right, Mrs. Georgia Jackson accepts award for her son George. At left, Mari Evans accepts poetry award from Academy member John Henrik Clarke.

The "news" event of the second annual awards banquet of the Black Academy of Art and Letters in New York last September was the presentation of the non-fiction literary award to martyred George Jackson for his book, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, published a year earlier. The murdered man's mother, Mrs. Georgia Jackson, a handsome woman still despite the ravages of grief and weariness which have squared her face and leadened her stride, accepted the citation and the $500.00 stipend in behalf of her son. Her voice, weighted like her movements, and her apparel, a simple brown pants suit, contrasted with the incipient verve and glitter of the occasion, quietly mocking the elegance and pretentiousness of the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and of the people assembled there.

There was "news" also in the fact 
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of the literary awards themselves. The Academy initiated with the 1971 awards banquet policy of honoring authors of outstanding books published during the preceding year. Winners of the other first literary awards were: Mari Evans, for I Am A Black Woman, poetry; William Melvin Kelley, for Dunfords Travels Everywheres, fiction; and Franklin W. Knight, for Slave Society in Cuba During the 19th Century, a scholarly work. Each award carried with it a $500.00 cash stipend.

The regular awards for outstanding and meritorious achievement presented by the Academy went to

BLACK WORLD November 1971 69