A writer of essays, short stories, a novel, and juvenile biographies, Louise Meriwether is regarded as a minor author, eclipsed by her more prolific contemporaries. The infrequent appearance of her name in journals of literary criticism and book-length studies on black American literature is regrettable, for she is a socially conscious activist-author of meticulous craftsmanship. Exposing the insidiousness of racism and the capriciousness of sexism, she shares a great deal with her contemporaries: like them she writes about the prejudices and preoccupations of her time. Her distinction is that her feeling is not invented but personal. Her firsthand experiences with America's inequities lend themselves to plausible characters, lifelike dialogue, accurate details, and metaphorically significant settings. Her fiction shows considerable narrative skill; her nonfiction is direct and forceful.

Louise Meriwether was born in Haverstraw, New York, to Marion Lloyd Jenkins and Julia Jenkins. She is the third of five...