Ann Allen Shockley facts for kids

Ann Allen Shockley (born June 21, 1927) is an American journalist, editor, and author. She is known for her writings that explore the experiences of African-American women, especially those facing challenges related to their race and gender. She also encouraged libraries to focus on collecting books and materials about African-American history and culture.

Ann Allen Shockley's Early Life and Career

Ann Allen Shockley was born in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky. From a young age, she was encouraged to read and write creatively. She was greatly inspired by the short stories of author Richard Wright. Her eighth-grade teacher, Harriet La Forest, was an important mentor who helped shape Shockley's writing skills.

Starting as a Journalist

Shockley began writing for an audience in high school, where she worked as the editor for her school's newspaper. She continued her journalism work as a writer for various newspapers during her college years. She earned her bachelor's degree from Fisk University in 1948. Later, in 1959, Shockley received her master's degree in library science from Case Western Reserve University.

Family Life

In 1948, Ann Shockley married William Shockley, a teacher. They had two children, William Leslie Jr. and Tamara Ann. The couple later divorced, but Ann kept her ex-husband's last name.

A Career in Libraries and Writing

Shockley worked as a librarian at Delaware State College and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. In 1969, she started working for the Special Negro Collection at Fisk University. She became a professor of library science, a university archivist, and an associate librarian for special collections at Fisk. She also started the Black Oral History Program there before retiring in 1988.

Throughout her career, Shockley wrote several books about librarianship and special collections, especially those related to African-American collections. She also published more than thirty short stories, novels, and articles that discuss issues of fairness and acceptance. Shockley wrote many articles about the literature of her time, particularly within Black feminist groups, and was a respected literary critic.

In 2019, Shockley received the Lee Lynch Classics Award for her novel Loving Her. This award was part of the 15th Annual Goldie Literary Awards, given by the Golden Crown Literary Society, an organization for lesbian literature in the United States.

Ann Allen Shockley's Important Works

Newspaper Columns

From July 1945 to March 1954, Shockley worked as a freelance newspaper columnist. She wrote for newspapers like the Louisville Defender, Fisk University Herald, Federalsburg [MD] Times, and Bridgeville [DE] News. Her columns mainly focused on issues important to the African-American community. Her writings appeared under titles such as "Mostly Teen Talk", "Duffy's Corner", and "Ebony's Topics".

Short Stories

Shockley also wrote many short stories. These stories often explored the experiences of African-American women and the challenges they faced. Through her stories, Shockley helped people understand the conditions these individuals lived in and how these conditions affected their lives. Some of her short stories include "Holly Craft Isn't Gay" (1980) and "A Meeting of Sapphic Daughters" (Spring 1979), both found in The Black and White of It (1980). Other stories like "The Eternal Triangle" (1948), "The Curse of Kapa" (1951), and "Monday Will Be Better" (1964) were published in various outlets such as the Afro-American (Baltimore) and Negro Digest. Many of Shockley's short stories were considered bold and thought-provoking for their time.

Non-fiction Books

• A History of Public Library Services to Negroes in the South, 1900–1955 (1960)
• A Handbook for the Administration of Special Black Collections (1970)
• Living Black American Authors: A Biographical Directory (compiled and edited with Sue P. Chandler) (1973)
• A Handbook of Black Librarianship (compiled and edited, with E. J. Josey) (1977)
• "The Black Lesbian in American Literature: An Overview", Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (edited by Barbara Smith)(1983)
• Afro-American Women Writers, 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide (1988)

Fiction Books

• Loving Her (1974)
• The Black and White of It (1980)
• Say Jesus and Come to Me (1982)
• Celebrating Hotchclaw (2005)

Main Ideas in Shockley's Works

Exploring Fairness and Challenges

In most of her writings, Ann Allen Shockley explores modern issues of fairness and the daily struggles faced by African-Americans. She often writes about women in the African-American community who face challenges related to their identity. By writing about these topics, Shockley hoped to help people in the African-American community understand their shared experiences and differences.

Shockley's first published novel, Loving Her (1974), was groundbreaking. It was one of the first novels to feature an African-American female main character who was in a same-gender relationship. Through her character Renay, who leaves an unhappy marriage for a new relationship, Shockley explores what it was like to be an African-American woman in the twentieth century. She aimed to show these experiences as normal and relatable.

In her collection of short stories, The Black and White of It, Shockley also features African-American women as main characters. These characters are often successful professionals who face personal challenges. For example, in "Play It but Don't Say it", the main character is a Congresswoman. Say Jesus and Come to Me also addresses issues of acceptance, but it also looks at how religious communities deal with these topics. Shockley's non-fiction works, like her section in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, also discuss these same issues within the African-American community.

Her novel Celebrating Hotchclaw explores relationships and challenges within Black communities, especially those related to money problems and unfair practices, often set in historically Black colleges.

See also

• Black Literature by Black Women
• Literature about Women in Same-Gender Relationships