Berkeley’s administration to stop all funding to
the Apartheid-run government of South Africa.
Also while attending UCB, he edited My Broth-
er’s Keeper: Blackmen’s Poetry Anthology (1992),
which, published by Small Press Distributors, in-
cludes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA. In 1994, Datcher earned his
master’s degree in African-American literature
from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Datcher’s work, including hip-hop, rap, poetry
jam, and post–BLACK AESTHETICS literature, has
been featured in Testimony: Young African Ameri-
cans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity (Beacon
Press, 1995), Soulfires: Young Black Men on Love
and Violence, Body and Soul (Penguin, 1996), and
Catch the Fire: A Cross Generational Anthology of
Contemporary African-American Poetry (River-
head Books, 1998). He has written for VIBE, the
Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Baltimore
Sun, BLACK ISSUES BOOK REVIEW, and the Pacific
News Service. He served as former editor-In-chief
of Image magazine and as an editorial writer for
the Los Angeles Sentinel.
In 1993 Datcher received NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE’s Wal-
ter White Award for commentary. Also in 1993, he
became director of literacy programs for the Los
Angeles World Stage Anansi Writer’s Workshop, a
poet’s chance to submit and perform original work
and allow feedback from the audience. In 1996
Black Worlds Press published his coeditorial work
Tough Love: Cultural Criticism and Familial Obser-
vations on the Life and Death of Tupac Shakur. Mi-
chael Datcher also edited Black Love (1999), which
was published by the Beyond Baroque Foundation.
In 2001–2002, the J. Paul Getty Museum commis-
sioned Datcher to write and direct a full-length
play. That product became SILENCE. Currently,
he serves on the California Art’s Council’s Poet
Laureate Review Panel and is a board of directors
member for PEN Center USA West.
His memoir, Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love
Story (Riverhead Books, 2001), represents a life
and culture of black American life of the 1980s and
early 1990s. He tells of his adoption, his unknown
father, and two relationships with vastly different
outcomes. It illustrates his dedication to his writ-
ing and offers a personal message that a positive
and supportive family life can exist in today’s soci-
ety. One of the gifts of this book is its demonstra-
tion that cultural expression and communication
have evolved beyond just printed words and that
there can be honest communal emotion, action,
and meaning past the mere surface.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baran, Michelle. “Author Promotes Dream in ‘Raising
Fences.’ ” Daily Bruin Online. April 3, 2001. Avail-
able online. URL: http://www.dailybruin.ucla.
edu/news/articles.asp?ID=3489. Accessed October
2, 2006.
“Michael Datcher.” Contemporary Authors Online.
The Gale Group, 2002. Available by subscription.
Jerome CummingsDavis, Ossie (1917–2005)
An author, actor, director, and activist, Ossie Davis
has become an African-American icon of achieve-
ment. Born in Cogdell, Georgia, in 1917, his fam-
ily had to travel to the city of Waycross for him
to receive a formal education. The results of that
education surfaced at an early age, when he began
writing plays and acting in high school. Earning
a place at Howard University in 1935 for under-
graduate studies, he hitchhiked north to attend
the school, studying with black critic-professor
ALAIN LOCKE, who encouraged Davis to relocate
to New York to follow his dream to become a
playwright.
Taking the train to New York, Davis worked
an assortment of jobs as he eventually joined the
Rose McLendon Players of Harlem, making his
stage debut as an actor with that company in 1941.
Caught between writer’s block and patriotic duty,
he enlisted in the military and was trained to work
in the Walter Reed Hospital’s Army Medical Center
in Washington, D.C., before being later stationed at
an army hospital in Liberia. After the war and back
in New York, he won the title role of Jeb in 1946,
where he costarred with actress Ruby Dee. The
two married in 1948, having three children and a
long career in the performing arts, often working132 Davis, Ossie