Obituary: Julius Lester
Award-winning author, educator, activist, and musician Julius Lester, known for a body of work focused on African-American culture, history, and folklore, as well as for his fierce advocacy for books for black children by black creators, died on January 18 after a brief hospitalization. He was
Lester was born January 27, in St. Louis, Mo., and grew up in Kansas City and then Nashville, where his family moved in In a article for School Library Journal, Lester noted that during his youth he was witness to racial segregation and discrimination and was well aware of the violence that they wrought. His father was a Methodist minister, and Lester has said that his father’s sermons and stories gave him a firm foundation in black traditions. He also cited the summers he spent in rural Arkansas on his grandmother’s farm as another source of stories and voices that helped cement his appreciation of his heritage and encouraged his development as a storyteller.
From an early age, Lester loved music and books, and discovered that reading provided him an escape from the reality around him. As he grew, he worked his w
Lester, Julius –
Personal
Born January 27, , in St. Louis, MO; son of W. D. (a minister) and Julia (Smith) Lester; married Joan Steinau (a researcher), (divorced, ); married Alida Carolyn Fechner, March 21, (divorced, ); married Milan Sabatini, August 17, ; children: (first marriage) Jody Simone, Malcolm Coltrane; (second marriage) Elena Milad Grohmann (stepdaughter), David Julius; (third marriage) Lian Amaris Brennan (stepdaughter). Education: Fisk University, B.A.,
Addresses
Agent&#x; c/o Author Mail, Dial Press, Dell Publishing, Broadway, New York, NY &#x;[email&#;protected].
Career
Educator, historian, folklorist, writer, and performer. Professional musician and singer, c. s, recording with Vanguard Records; Newport Folk Festival, Newport, RI, director, ; WBAI-FM, New York, NY, producer and host of live radio show, ; WNET-TV, New York, NY, host of live television program Free Time, ; University of Massachusetts-Amherst, professor of Afro-American studies, , professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, , acting director and associate director of Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, , adjunct professor in English and history departments, , professor
Julius Lester
Julius Lester explored his many talents in a vivid and multifaceted life. He was a musician, radio host, civil rights activist, university professor, writer of over 40 books, photographer, and a spiritual seeker. His journey to Judaism defied expectations and convention.
Lester was born on January 27, , in St. Louis, Missouri. In , the family moved to Kansas City, Kansas, and then to Nashville, Tennessee in Lester was deeply attached to Pine Bluff Arkansas where his maternal grandparents lived. His father was a Methodist minister who imparted in Julius a sense of sanctity and separateness. Lester studied English at Fisk University in Nashville and graduated in
He was active in the Civil Rights movement, going to Mississippi in as part of the Mississippi Summer Project. Lester worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the civil rights groups that coined the phrase “black power.” Lester’s essay “The Angry Children of Malcolm X,” is considered one of the definitive African-American statements of its era. As his reputation grew, Lester wrote Look Out, Whitey! Black Power’s Gonna’ Get Your Mama! (), which he characterized as the “first b
Julius Lester, professor who embraced his Jewish and African-American identities, is dead
(JTA) — Julius Lester, an African-American singer, scholar and activist whose conversion to Judaism in came as a shock to those who only remembered his role in a bitter, racially charged school strike in New York’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood in , has died.
His family announced his death, which came after a brief hospitalization, on his Facebook page Thursday. He was
An award-winning author of 43 books for adults and children and articles in The New York Times and the Village Voice, he taught Judaic and Near Eastern studies at the University of Massachusetts. In , Lester’s novel about the civil rights movement, “And All Our Wounds Forgiven,” was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Lester, who taught guitar and performed as a folk singer in New York City, was among the civil rights activists who traveled to Mississippi in the “Freedom Summer” of to register African-American voters. His role in energizing the people gathered at rallies and the danger he and other organizers faced were recounted in a PBS documentary, “The Folk Singer.”
Lester came to the attention
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