Langston Hughes

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.... His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans . Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.
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Gwendolyn Clarine Knight was an African American artist from Barbados, in the West Indies. Gwendolyn Knight painted throughout her life, but did not... start seriously exhibiting her work until the 1970s. Her first retrospective when she was nearly eighty years old . Her teachers in the arts included the sculptor Augusta Savage and Jacob Lawrence, whom she married in 1941 and remain married to until his death in 2000. During the course of her career, she received many awards including the National Honor Award, and two honorary doctorate degrees. With her husband, Knight founded the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation in 2000, initially to support the careers of professional artists early in their careers. When Lawrence died, Gwendolyn Knight disbanded the original foundation and changed her will so that most of the couple's assets went to support children's programs. Today the Foundation's activities are devoted to the maintenance of a website that had been developed in 2000. The U.S.
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