Pearl Cleage papers

Pearl Cleage, the nationally recognized playwright, poet, novelist, social activist and Atlanta resident, has placed her papers at Emory University's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. The collection is now open to researchers.

"Pearl Cleage exemplifies the creative life," says Rosemary Magee, vice president and secretary of Emory University. "Her stories, poems and plays all display the imaginative interplay of lives in search of meaning. It is indeed an honor to have her papers at Emory."

Randall K. Burkett, Emory's curator of African American collections, says the acquisition of Cleage's papers "adds luster to our holdings of brilliant African American women writers, artists and activists. These include such talented individuals as Camille Billops, Elaine Brown, Lucille Clifton, Doris Derby, Samella Lewis, Louise Thompson Patterson, Mildred Thompson and Alice Walker. Cleage fits well in this pantheon of leading creative figures of the 20^th and 21^st centuries."

Cleage said she decided to place her papers with MARBL at Emory for several reasons, including prior discussions with the late Emory professor Rudolph Byrd, a MARBL supporter, and with Burkett.

"I really appreciated the way [Burkett] approached collecting African American material as an integral part of American culture,"she says, adding that she felt "Emory was a place that would value the work that I've done and make the papers available in a way that would make it productive to place them there."

 For complete article, see <http://news.emory.edu/stories/2012/08/upress_pearl_cleage_places_archive_at_emory/campus.html>.