41 Facts About Pearl Cleage

Pearl Cleage is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist.

Pearl Cleage is currently the Playwright in Residence at the Alliance Theatre and at the Just Us Theater Company.

Pearl Cleage's works are highly anthologized and have been the subject of many scholarly analyses.

Pearl Cleage's novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a 1998 Oprah's Book Club selection.

Pearl Cleage was born on December 7,1948, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and is the younger of two daughters of Doris Cleage, an elementary school teacher, and Rev Albert Cleage, founder of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church and the Shrine of the Black Madonna.

Pearl Cleage's father changed his name to Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman in conjunction with the founding of his church.

Pearl Cleage grew up surrounded by activists in her own family and community.

Pearl Cleage listened to writers speaking at her father's church and met prominent figures of the Civil Rights Movement as they stopped by her house on their way to rallies, both of which were experiences that shaped her future aspirations and career.

Pearl Cleage knew that she wanted to write since she was two years old.

Pearl Cleage graduated from Detroit Public Schools' Northwestern High School in 1966.

From 1966 to 1969, Pearl Cleage enrolled at Howard University in Washington, DCwhere she studied playwriting and produced two one-act plays as a student.

Pearl Cleage always knew she wanted to be a writer and has maintained her career for 40 years.

Pearl Cleage has made contributions to the literary world through several mediums as a playwright, essayist, novelist and poet.

Pearl Cleage takes pride in her ability to write across different genres and enjoys doing so.

Pearl Cleage has held positions at multiple theaters and institutions; from 1986 to 1991, Pearl Cleage was a Cosby Endowed Chair professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Pearl Cleage was dubbed the Playwright in Residence at Spelman in 1991.

Pearl Cleage holds positions as the Playwright in Residence and artistic director of the Just Us Theater Company.

In 2013, Cleage became the Playwright in Residence at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta through the National Playwright Residency Program funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and administered by HowlRound.

Pearl Cleage is documenting her residency with frequent writings in the HowlRound journal.

Pearl Cleage had her introduction to playwriting in the 1980s, producing her first play, Puppetplay, in 1981, which was followed by Hospice, Good News and Essentials.

Pearl Cleage has made significant journalistic contributions and is the founder of the literary magazine Catalyst and has been its editor since 1987.

Pearl Cleage has been a supporter of the Obama administration.

Pearl Cleage is an activist for AIDS and women's rights, experiences from which she draws for her writings.

Pearl Cleage speaks at colleges, universities, and conferences on topics including domestic violence, the citizen's role in a participatory democracy, and writing topics.

In 1969, Pearl Cleage married Michael Lomax, an Atlanta politician and past-president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 2014, Pearl Cleage published a compilation of her personal journal entries titled, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, and Love Affairs, in which chronicles her life from age 11 through the following 18 years.

Pearl Cleage originally intended to share the entries with her granddaughter.

Pearl Cleage closely identifies with growing up in the 1960s, and the three major social movements of the time have closely shaped the themes of her writing.

Pearl Cleage did not find this thought limiting or oppressive.

Pearl Cleage's highly anthologized works can be found in Double Stitch, Black Drama in America, New Plays from the Women's Project, and Contemporary Plays by Women of Color ; Flyin' West and Other Plays is a full anthology of all of her plays through the year of its publication.

Pearl Cleage's works have been subject to many scholarly analyses and critical essays.

Pearl Cleage focuses on issues surrounding race and gender across all of her works, particularly how these challenges overlap in the lives of Black women.

Pearl Cleage's works have been shaped by the political and social movements of the 1960s, which she experienced first hand.

Pearl Cleage's works have evolved over time to reflect the issues and difficulties facing the community with which she identifies, and, as she gets older, in addition to being Black and being a Women, age becomes part of her identity; these newer challenges are now being reflected in her work, as can be observed in her most recent play: Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous.

Pearl Cleage introduces these topics as a way to encourage understanding and conversation.

Pearl Cleage is motivated by a sense of responsibility to share the dark truths, while simultaneously imparting a message of hope and love for humanity, embracing all of its flaws.

Pearl Cleage owns the role of openly sharing to young people the realities of good and bad life choices and their effects.

Pearl Cleage has stated that black women in America are her main audience, but she welcomes all audiences to her work.

Pearl Cleage received one of her first awards in 1991 for Outstanding Columnist from the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists.

Pearl Cleage received the Sankofa Freedom Award in 2010 and the Theatre Legend Award at the Atlanta Black Theatre Festival in 2013.

Pearl Cleage was inducted into the Atlanta Business League's Women's Hall of Fame in 2020 and the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2021.