and the Literary Imagination, edited by Deborah
E. McDowell and Arnold Rampersad, 1–24. Balti-
more: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery. In Three
Negro Classics, edited by John H. Franklin, 1–205.
New York: Avon Books, 1965.
Ronald G. Coleman
Watts Writers Workshop (1965–1973)
In 1965 award-winning scriptwriter and biogra-
pher Budd (Wilson) Schulberg of Beverly Hills
founded the Douglass House Watts Writers Work-
shop, a multimillion-dollar cultural center and
writers’ development program, in response to the
Watts Rebellion. After touring postrebellion Watts,
while it “still smoked,” Schulberg posted a note at
the Westminster Neighborhood Association an-
nouncing a creative writing workshop. Three
months later, CHARLES JOHNSON became the first
recruit; others, including Johnnie Scott and John
Eric Priestley, would follow.
The workshop was initially located on 103rd
Street in the Watts area of Los Angeles, California,
down the street from what is now Mafundi Institute
and not far from Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers. Ac-
cording to Watts native Anthony “Amde” Hamilton,
cofounder and member of the spoken-word trio
The Watts Prophets, the workshop was “a cultural
laboratory for black ideology created as a positive
gesture in reaction to the 1965 Watts riots” (quoted
in Jackson). From 1965 to 1973, the workshop func-
tioned as a fine arts development haven for writing,
critiquing, honing, performing, and publishing po-
etry, essays, and stories based in the life experiences
of the writers. Other programs, such as drama,
martial arts, studio recordings, and first-run movie
screenings, extended the workshop’s core writing
program and earned it the status of a multidisci-
plinary cultural arts and education complex. Within
a year after it was founded, the workshop outgrew
the Westminster building and relocated to Watts
Happening Coffee House, an abandoned furniture
store converted by neighborhood youths into an art
center that is now part of Mafundi Institute.
On August 16, 1966, NBC aired “The Angry
Voices of Watts.” The one-hour, prime-time net-
work news documentary that featured workshop
writers sparked press attention and support from
prominent academic, literary, entertainment, and
political figures from across the country, including
writers JAMES BALDWIN and John Steinbeck, tele-
vision writer Digby Wolfe, actors Richard Burton
and Steve Allen, singer Abbey Lincoln, composer
Ira Gershwin, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
By 1971 Schulberg and Fred Hudson founded
the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in
New York, an offshoot of the workshop in Watts,
adding about 40 to 50 writers to the original mem-
bership list. Writers who developed and presented
their skills in the workshop and who lectured
and taught there included Fannie Mae Brown,
Jayne Cortez, Kamau Daàood, Marla Gibbs, Edna
Gibson, Juanita Brittain Gist, Charmaine Grant,
Odie Hawkins, James Thomas Jackson, Charles
Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Ted Lange, K. Curtis
Lyle, Sunora McKeller, Dee Dee McNeil, Louise
Meriwether, Birdell Chew Moore, Roger Mosley,
Ojenke, Blossom Powell, J. Eric Priestley, John-
nie H. Scott, Ymmas Sirrah (aka Sammy Harris),
Nola Richardson Satcher, Jimmie Sherman; The
Watts Prophets—Anthony “Amde” Hamilton, Otis
O’Solomon, and Richard Anthony Dedeaux—and
QUINCY TROUPE. The Westminster building was
vandalized and destroyed by fire in 1973.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carter, Curtis L. “Watts: The Hub of the Universe, Art
and Social Change.” Watts: Art and Social Change
in Los Angeles, 1965–2002. Marquette University
Haggerty Museum of Art. Available online. URL:
http://www.marquette.edu/haggerty/exhibitions/
past/watts/watts.html. Accessed October 26, 2006.
Jackson, Major. “The Watts Prophets.” earSHOT,
April 1997. Available online. URL: http://www.
citypaper.net/earshot 0497/zoom.wattsprophets.
shtml. Accessed February 15, 2007.
The Watts Prophets. Change Is Overdue. With Don
Cherry. London: New World Rhythm, 1992.Merilene M. Murphy534 Watts Writers Workshop