From the eighteenth century roots of African American poetry, its poets have expressed their existence in a society that debated and debased their humanity. Today their intense exploration of their voices in the racially charged years of the early twenty-first century gives witness to the acts of remembering a disturbing past in which African Americans struggled for human and civil rights. The timeline begins in 1950 with Gwendolyn Brooks’ winning of the Pulitzer Prize, the first time an African American had been recognized with this distinction. For the poets, African American history is a source of power and an impulse to action. Visitors to the Furious Flower Archive will witness the various dimensions of artistic freedom and the lengths poets go to achieve poetic expression.