"Our need for racial justice is rooted in the decimation and annihilation of our natives peoples, in the historic and monumental enslavement and marginalization of African peoples, it informs our excuse to go to war without counting the dead or measuring the destruction, and it is the weight we put on the back of every so-called illegal laborer who harvests our sustenance, builds our shelters, and who will ultimately dig our graves."
Best-known for his popular mysteries featuring private investigator Easy Rawlins, Walter Mosley transcends the conventional bounds of fiction writing. The New York Times Book Review called him “a literary artist as well as a master of mystery.” The Boston Globe hailed him as “one of the nation’s finest writers.”
Mosley’s novels depict the black experience as seen through the eyes of ordinary men. “Fully formed, complex black men have been absent from much of contemporary literature,” says Mosley. Imbued with dignity, insight and whatever strength they have, Mosley’s characters deal with what it means to be black and male in America while building a life of purpose and fulfillment. His first Rawlins novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into a film starring Denzel Washington. Other books in the series include the New York Times bestsellers, Bad Boy Brawly Brown, Black Betty, A Little Yellow Dog, Cinnamon Kiss, and Little Scarlet, which Publishers Weekly called “Mosley’s best novel to date” and “genre writing at its finest.” Mosley is adapting the novel for film. Mosley is an active voice for the black community in the ongoing effort for racial equality. In his essays and nonfiction (What Next: A Memoir Towards World Peace, Workin’ on the Chain Gang, Life Out of Context), he examines ways that the African-American perspective can contribute to political, economic and social progress in America.
His other works include the blues novel, RL’s Dream; The Man in My Basement, a meditation on morality and justice; the sci-fi novels Blue Light, Futureland and The Wave; the Fearless Jones novels Fear Itself and Fear of the Dark; the young adult novel 47; and the novel Fortunate Son (April 2006), which Library Journal said “deserves to be on the shelves of every library.” His short fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and GQ. One of the stories in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned won an O’Henry Award. The book became an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne. He is the founder of City Colleges’ pioneering publishing program. He is also the first African-American to sit on the National Book Foundation’s influential board of directors and currently serves on the boards of The Poetry Society of America and TransAfrica. In 2003 he hosted the National Book Awards. Mosley has won numerous awards including a 2002 Grammy for the liner notes accompanying Richard Pryor’s And It’s Deep Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings. In 2004 he was honored with the Sundance Risktaker Award and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. | |

"Our need for racial justice is rooted in the decimation and annihilation of our natives peoples, in the historic and monumental enslavement and marginalization of African peoples, it informs our excuse to go to war without counting the dead or measuring the destruction, and it is the weight we put on the back of every so-called illegal laborer who harvests our sustenance, builds our shelters, and who will ultimately dig our graves."
What the state's new immigration law teaches us about the dissembling language of bias in…
ColorLines executive editor,
The Accidental American is a book about the challenges and
contradictions of U. S.…
ColorLines has been the national newsmagazine on race and
politics since 1998. We tell stories…
We Are All Suspects Now reveals the human cost of the domestic…
Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism is a collection of essays by…
Language Is a Place of Struggle: Great Quotes by People of Color is…
ARC releases two *new* Green Case Studies that profile winning formulas…
This report tells the stories of people of color who are disproportionately affected by…
Released April 2009. Report on low-income children at risk. Double standards in childcare endanger…
Racing the Statehouse Finds Solutions for Racial Inequity Available to States
Facing Race: 2009 Legislative Report Card is a project of the Applied Research Center and…
ARC's 2007 Legislative Report Card on Racial Equity, by Jarad Sanchez and Tammy Johnson.…
Catalytic Change: Lessons Learned from the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment. The Applied Research Center (ARC)…
As part of ARC's "Check the ColorLine" series, this fact sheet provides a brief…
Longtime civil rights advocate and litigator Michelle Alexander has come out with her first book,…
Saturday, August 15, 11:30 am Chevron Protest in Richmond, CA: Mobilize for Climate
Justice!
Green Job Guidebook Created to Show Best practices for Job Training Programs Across California.


