Callaloo's Dr. Charles Rowell receives PEN/Mora Magid Award

On May 8th, I was honored to accept the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing award on behalf of Dr. Charles Rowell, the founder and longtime editor of Callaloo. Callaloo started with Dr. Rowell’s vision for Black literature, namely for the inclusion and promotion of Southern Black voices—voices like his own, that had not been respected or included in the literary world. Reflecting on Callaloo’s history at the journal’s 40th anniversary celebration at the University of Oxford he said:

...during the late-1960s and early-1970s there were not many publishable black writers living in the South, and many of those living outside the South no longer considered themselves as Southerners. Identifying yourself as a Southerner then—as now in some Black social circles outside the South—did not carry with it value or positive distinction. That meant that you, a native of the Deep South, are what is called in everyday parlance “a ‘bama,” which, as you know, is a very derisive description…one of the reasons that I founded Callaloo as a Southern black journal is for that very reason—to counteract the low opinions that Northern blacks have of Southern blacks. (Let me add that Southern white literary or academic journals followed the rules of Jim Crow; they did not publish texts by black writers or about black people until the 1990s.)

But as Callaloo took off, his vision expanded. The journal grew from providing a space for an overlooked regional voice to fostering a conversation across the African diaspora, and the world. Writers and artists from South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the African continent began to appear in Callaloo’s pages. Dr. Rowell continued to work tirelessly to widen the journal’s scope, moving beyond the poems and articles on the page, to global events. The Callaloo Conference and Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop took place at the most prominent American universities, but also in Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean. For most of the last 50 years, Callaloo was the global destination for Black arts and letters.

The recognition of Dr. Rowell’s work at this moment in history sends an important message. We live in a time where forces are once again arrayed against the voices of people of color, and anyone who does not conform with or offer support to the current regime. Honoring Dr. Rowell’s championing of voices that would go unheard or be silenced serves as a reminder that as writers and editors, publishers and readers, our work is to keep the conversation open. It reminds us to keep writing, keep speaking, keep reading, keep listening. It challenges us to promote words that move us beyond what we think we already know, work that challenges us to see the other as we see ourselves.

Dr. Rowell stood up for this essential freedom of Black people to speak and be heard. I’m honored to continue his legacy.

Watch the video from the award ceremony on the Hopkins Press YouTube channel.