children’s books, My Dream of Martin Luther King
(1998) and If a Bus Could Talk (1999). The lat-
ter is the story of the Rosa Parks sit-in, includ-
ing biographical material of Parks’s frightening
childhood in rural Alabama. At that time, the Ku
Klux Klan and the nightriders terrified African
Americans. Also, Rosa walked to school while her
white peers rode buses. The climax of the story is
Rosa’s courageous sit-in, an example that awakens
the world. A parallel to this theme is the MARTIN
LUTHER KING story, which embraces a peaceful
fight for civil rights. Young readers are dared to
fulfill King’s dreams. A third theme, finding and
surmounting difficulties, underpins Ringgold’s
engaging autobiographical work Talking to Faith
Ringgold, coauthored by Linda Freeman and
Nancy Roucher. Illustrations of Ringgold’s works
from the 1980s and 1990s enliven the text, which
is appropriate for both young and older adults.
The same concept of courage, freedom, and peace
resonate in The Invisible Princes (1998). Presented
in fable-like context with colorful imagery, the
book tells of a young girl who leads her oppressed
people from slavery to freedom. Dancing at the
Louvre: Faith Ringgold’s French Collection and
Other Quilt Stories presents a selected overview of
her famed story quilts (paintings with texts) and
reflects Ringgold’s insight, wit, and joyful take on
art world icons. The New Museum of Contempo-
rary Art in New York City and The University of
California Press publish it.
Ringgold draws from personal and community
histories, from confrontational yet peaceful strug-
gles within and beyond the art world. She presents
and explores transformation through paintings,
painted story quilts, performance, and writings.
In recognition of her vision and creative contri-
butions, she has received more than 75 awards,
fellowships, citations, and honors, including the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship and two Na-
tional Endowment for the Arts awards.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cameron, Dan, ed. Dancing at the Louvre: Faith Ring-
gold’s French Collection and Other Story Quilts.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.
Ringgold, Faith. Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad
in the Sky. New York: Random House, 1992.
———. If a Bus Could Talk. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1999.
———. The Invisible Princes. New York: Crown,
1998.
———. My Dream of Martin Luther King. New York:
Random House, 1998.
———. Talking to Faith Ringgold. New York: Crown,
1996.
———. Tar Beach. New York: Crown, 1992.
Donnette Hatch AtiyahRodgers, Carolyn M. (1945– )
Poet, short story writer, and literary critic Carolyn
Marie Rodgers was born in Chicago on Decem-
ber 14, 1945, the daughter of Clarence and Bazella
Rodgers. Rogers attended public schools in Chi-
cago and she enrolled at the University of Illinois
in 1960. A year later, she enrolled at Roosevelt Uni-
versity in Chicago, where she received her bache-
lor’s degree in 1965. During the mid-1960s, while
working as a social worker at the YMCA and with
a poverty program, Rodgers began meeting writers
associated with the Chicago-based writer’s group
Organization of Black African Culture (OBAC).
During the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, Rodgers
emerged as an important writer and member of
OBAC, which included HOYT FULLER, then the
editor of Negro Digest/BLACK WORLD; HAKI MA-
DHUBUTI; Johari Amini; and GWENDOLYN BROOKS.
Paper Soul (1968), Rodgers’s first volume of poetry,
was published by THIRD WORLD PRESS, which she
cofounded with Madhubuti and Amini. Themati-
cally, Paper Soul address cultural identity, religion,
black liberation, and a woman’s considerations of
love. Two of her later volumes of poetry, Songs of
a Black Bird (1969) and 2 Love Raps (1969), also
published by Third World Press, extend Rodgers’s
considerations of themes relating to black cultural
identity, her role as a black woman poet, street life,
and the possibilities of black revolution. In 1975
Anchor/Doubleday published Rodgers’s how i got
ovah: New and Selected Poems; in 1978 it published438 Rodgers, Carolyn M.