Coltrane, STERLING BROWN, MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR., and MALCOLM X, as central to her agenda of
black survival.
Sanchez has received many awards, includ-
ing the American Book Award for Homegirls and
Handgrenades, her most acclaimed work; the PEN
Writing Award; the NA Award; the Lucretia Mott
Award; and the Oni Award from the International
Black Women’s Congress. Sanchez is the Laura
Carnell Professor of English and Women’s Studies
at Temple University in Philadelphia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Koolish, Lynda. African American Writers, Portraits
and Vision. Jackson: University Press of Missis-
sippi, 2001.
Sanchez, Sonia. A Blue Book for Blue Black Magical
Women. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1974.
———. Home Coming. Detroit: Broadside Press,
1969.
———. We a BaddDDD People. Detroit: Broadside
Press, 1970.
Wilfred D. Samuels
Sapphire (Ramona Lofton) (1950– )
Born in Fort Orr, California, Ramona Lofton, who
uses the pen name Sapphire, spent most of her life
in and around military bases. Her father was an
army sergeant, and her mother was a member of
the Women’s Army Corps. Because of the mili-
tary, her family moved many times throughout
her young life, from California to Texas to Phila-
delphia to Germany. These numerous relocations
were difficult for the family and were complicated
by her mother’s alcoholism. In 1983 two major
tragedies struck Sapphire’s life. Her mother passed
away, and her brother, who was then homeless,
was killed. Although Sapphire attended San Fran-
cisco City College during the 1970s, majoring in
dance, she dropped out of school and moved to
New York City, where, in 1993, she received a de-
gree in modern dance.
After finishing her degree, Sapphire taught
reading to students in the Bronx and Harlem. Her
literary works, fiction and poetry, emerged from
the complex life stories of those she knew person-
ally. While living in Harlem from 1983 to 1993,
she observed the hardships faced by many of the
young people in the building. In a 1996 interview,
she comments:I saw a complete generation grow up while I
was living in Harlem. The children who were
seven and eight when I moved in were sev-
enteen and eighteen when I moved out. I saw
girls who had their first babies at fourteen. I
listened to someone I had gone over a little
primer with talking about their friend who got
shot. I wasn’t someone who came in for a year
or two and then went on. I saw the way things
get repeated.These experiences became the grist for her first
published book, American Dreams (1994), a combi-
nation of poetry and prose about the violent reali-
ties of inner-city life. The speaker in the somewhat
autobiographical title poem, “American Dream,”
embodies the achievement of agency through voice
that characterizes many, if not most, of Sapphire’s
characters, particularly her women, who are any-
thing but silenced, one-dimensional beings:The woman looked at me & hissed,
“Stand up for the general!”
I said, “My father’s in the army not me.”
& I remained seated.
& throughout 38 years...
there has been a quiet
10 year old in me
who has remained seated.
She perhaps is the real American Dream.
(American Dreams, 21)Equally self-empowered is the mother, Willa Mae
Justice, a domestic, in the short story “A New Day
for Willa Mae.” When Willa Mae finds her boy-
friend locked in a passionate sexual embrace with
Jadine, her 26-year-old daughter, a dancer who
lives with her, Willa Mae chases them both from
her house. Feeling betrayed by her only child,Sapphire 449