Thulani Davis

Thulani Davis (born Barbara Neal Davis July 19, 1949) She has collaborated with her cousin, composer Anthony Davis, writing the librettos to two operas.

Davis wrote for the Village Voice for more than a decade, including the obituary for fellow poet and Barnard alumna June Jordan. She was a mentor to a young Greg Tate, before he emerged as an influential journalist and cultural critic. Davis is a contemporary of and collaborator with Ntozake Shange.

Biography Thulani Davis was born in Hampton, Virginia, on July 19, 1949, to two African-American educators, The Davises are prominent in Virginia and are the subject of her 2006 book, My Confederate Kinfolk.

Davis graduated from the Putney School in 1966 and continued her education at Barnard College, from which she graduated in 1970.

Amistad received a major revision in libretto and music in 2008 for a new production at the Spoleto USA festival. Opera Today said that it was "much leaner, more focused and dramatically far more effective than the original. And in so doing they {the Davises] created not only a masterpiece of American opera, but further a work that — against a contemporary horizon darkened by undercurrents of racism — resonates today far beyond Memminger and Spoleto USA."

After her return to New York City, Davis also became involved in the creation of documentaries and dramatic films. Her filmmaker brother, Collis Huntington Davis Jr., introduced her to other Black filmmakers. The first documentary she was associated with aired on PBS. She founded the Brooklyn Buddhist Association with her husband Joseph Jarman.

Works

Books The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom (2022) My Confederate Kinfolk (2006) Maker of Saints (1996) Malcolm X: The Great Photographs (1993) 1959, a novel (1992) Playing the Changes (1985) All the Renegade Ghosts Rise (1978)

Plays The Souls of Black Folk (2003) Everybody's Ruby: Story of a Murder in Florida (1999) Ava & Cat in Mexico (1994) Adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1990) Paint (1982) Shadow & Veil, with Ntozake Shange, Jessica Hagedorn, Laurie Carlos, et al. (1982) Sweet Talk and Stray Desires (1979) Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon, with Shange and Hagedorn (1977)

Musical works Dark Passages (1998) Amistad, an opera, libretto (1997/revised 2008) A Woman Unadorned (1994) Baobab Four (1994) The E. & O. Line, an electronic opera, libretto (1989) X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X, an opera, libretto (1986) X-cerpts (1987) Steppin' Other Shores (1983) See Tee's New Blues (1982)

Filmography Films Paid in Full, screenwriter (2002) Maker of Saints, co-producer (2010)

Documentaries and recordings I'll Make Me a World: Black Creative Minds in the 20th Century W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices (1996) Thulani Davis Asks, 'Why Howard Beach?''' (1988) Thulani (1984–86) Reflections (2002) The Musical Railism of Anne LeBaron (1998) Songposts, Vol. 1 (1991) Without Borders (1989) Fanfare for the Warriors'' (1985)

Awards and recognition Inaugural fellow, The Leon Levy Center for Biography, City University of New York Graduate Center, 2008–09 Fellow, The Newington-Cropsey Foundation Academy of Art, 2007–08 Fellow, The Charles H. Revson Fellows Program on the Future of the City of New York at Columbia University, 2003–04 Declared an Admiral of The Great Navy of the State of Nebraska by the Governor of Nebraska, 2004 The New York Coalition of One Hundred Black Women, First Annual Legacies Award, for Achieving Unparallelled Excellence in the Arts, 2003 Induction in the Black Writers Hall of Fame, 1998 The Ralph Metcalfe Chair, Marquette University, Milwaukee, 1998 The Paul Robeson Cultural Democracy Award, The Chicago Center for Arts Policy, 1998 David Randolph Distinguished Artist-in-Residence, The New School, NY, 1998 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Artist-in-residence, 1996 Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers Award, 1996–99 PEW National Theatre Artist Residency Grant, 1993–95 Grammy Award, Best Album Notes, Aretha Franklin, "The Atlantic Recordings", 1993, First woman to win in category Grammy Nomination, Best New Work, Classical, "X, The Life & Times...," 1993 Chicago Humanities Festival Award, 1992 New York Foundation for the Arts, The Gregory Millard Fellowship Award, Fiction, 1988 Manhattan Borough President's Awards, Excellence in the Arts & Literature, 1987 New York State Council on the Arts, Writer in Residency Award, 1987 The Fannie Lou Hamer Award, Medgar Evers College, Women's Center, 1987