Herb Boyd on Detroit.

At every festival we like to choose a great city and invite writers who live in or have written about the place to come and discuss the town and its influence on their lives and writing. We did this in 2019 (for those of you who can remember that far back) with a scintillating panel on Chicago. This year, we’re talking about Detroit. We can’t wait - arguably, no other city is as emblematic of the promise of urban life in the US, with its outsized influence over national culture, art, economics, and politics. The first of our Motor City panelists is Herb Boyd!

Herb Boyd is an award winning author and journalist who has published a number of books and countless articles for national magazines and newspapers.  His most recent book is Harlem Renaissance Redux (Third World Press, 2020). In 2017, he published Black Detroit—A People’s History of Self-Determination, which has received several awards, including a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.  Among his other books, are The Diary of Malcolm X (Third World Press, 2013), co-edited with Malcolm’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and By Any Means Necessary—Malcolm X, Not Reinvented (Third World Press, 2012), co-edited with Dr. Haki Madhubuti, Dr. Ron Daniels, and Dr. Maulana Karenga. Brotherman—The Odyssey of Black Men in America—An Anthology (One World/Ballantine, 1995), co-edited with Robert Allen of the Black Scholar journal, won the American Book Award for nonfiction. He has been inducted into three Hall of Fames, including the National Association of Black Journalists and the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.  Boyd, a graduate of Wayne State University, teaches African American History and Culture at the City College of New York in Harlem where he lives.