Second Annual Kaleidoscope Awards for Literary Excellence
The C. T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives
By Lashley John
On Thursday, April 27th, the Second Annual Kaleidoscope Awards, which honors authors and other members of the literary community, was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Atlanta. It was a wonderful dinner and gala.
The event honored C. T. and Octavia Vivian’s commitment to and support for the appreciation of Black culture in the world of literary arts and the growth of Black writers. They traveled the country in search of writings by Black authors. They had to fly to places like New York and California to locate books, because the majority publishers didn’t publish or distribute the works of minorities. During their travels, they were able to find local publications. and over time built up a personal collection of nearly 6,000 works by Black authors.
When he was a youngster, C. T. Vivian claimed that he couldn’t locate any books by Black authors in his neighborhood library. This troubled him and motivated him to seek out the works of Black writers, who at the time were not published by mainstream publishers.
This year’s honorees were:
- Hank Klibanoff – Author / Journalism
- Crystal E. Wilkinson – Author / Poet
- Randall Kenan – Author / Writer (Posthumous award)
Social Justice honorees were:
- Xernona Clayton – Social Justice / Civil Rights Icon
- Elisabeth Omilami – Social Justice / Humanitarian
The presenters were broadcast journalist Lisa Rayam and Radio Personality Frank Ski.
Four students, Natalia Celes, Sonia Moore, Okeke Monachiso and Christopher Wykoff were each given the Octavia Vivian Scholarship award, an $8,000 award.
Honorary co-chairs were Ambassador Andrew and Mrs. Carolyn Young. The honorary host committee included Taylor Branch, Xernona Clayton, Ann Cramer, Reverend Gerald Durley, the Honorable Glenda Hatchett, Dr. Carol Henderson, Tayari Jones, Monica Kauffman Pearson, the Honorable Doug Shipman, Ernie Suggs, Rutherford Seydel, Laura Turner Seydel, the Honorable Calvin Smyre and Natasha Trethewey.
Donations go to the C. T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives.
Hank Klibanoff
Hank Klibanoff, an American journalist and author, teaches non-fiction writing in Emory University’s Creative Writing Program and directs the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory. Klibanoff was the managing editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution until he stepped down in June 2008. He had been deputy managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he worked for 20 years. He also had been a reporter for six years in Mississippi and three years at The Boston Globe. He is creator and host of “Buried Truths,” a podcast that examines unpunished racially motivated killings in Georgia history. The podcast has won Peabody, Robert F. Kennedy, Edward R. Murrow and American Bar Association Awards. He and Gene Roberts won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History for the book, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Movement and the Awakening of a Nation. Klibanoff serves as an appointee of President Biden on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board, which seeks to expedite the release of federal government-held records related to racially motivated killings from 1940 to 1980. Born in Florence, Alabama, Klibanoff got an early start in journalism delivering newspapers by bicycle. He graduated from Coffee High School in Florence, received his B.A. in English from Washington University in St. Louis, and his Master’s degree in journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Crystal E. Wilkinson
Crystal E. Wilkinson, a recent fellowship recipient of the Academy of American Poets, is Kentucky’s Poet Laureate. She is the award-winning author of Perfect Black, a collection of poems, and three works of fiction—The Birds of Opulence , Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. She is the recipient of a 2022 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, a 2021 O. Henry Prize, a 2020 USA Artists Fellowship, and a 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. She has received recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, The Hermitage Foundation and others. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, STORY, Agni Literary Journal, Emergence, Oxford American and Southern Cultures. Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts, a culinary memoir, is forthcoming from Clarkson Potter/Penguin Random House. She currently teaches at the University of Kentucky where she is Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing Program.
Randall Kenan (1963–2020)
Randall Kenan (1963–2020) was Professor of English and Comparative Literature at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the former chancellor of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His awards included a Whiting Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the North Carolina Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Rome Prize. His first novel, A Visitation of Spirits, was published by Grove Press in 1989. His collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (Harcourt, Brace, 1992), was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was among The New York Times Notable Books of 1992. He is also the author of a young adult biography of James Baldwin (1993), and wrote the text for Norman Mauskoff’s book of photographs, A Time Not Here: The Mississippi Delta (1997). Walking on Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999) was nominated for the Southern Book Award. He published The Fire This Time, a work of nonfiction, in 2007 and edited The Cross of Redemption: The Uncollected Writings of James Baldwin (2012). If I Had Two Wings (W.W. Norton and Co., 2020) was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and Black Folk Could Fly, (W.W. Norton and Co., 2022), a posthumous book of his selected writings and collected essays, appeared on the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and Notable Book A Book Riot Best Book of 2022.
The C. T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives
Civil Rights activist C. T. Vivian passed away in his home in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 95 on July 17th, 2020. As a prominent Civil Rights leader, Vivian dedicated his life to bringing equality through nonviolent action. His legacy is honored through the C. T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives, Inc.
The C. T. and Octavia Vivian Museum and Archives, Inc. is an Atlanta-based, non-profit organization. The purpose of the Museum and Archives is to collect, preserve and exhibit books authored by African-Americans and/or those of African heritage. The organization also supports educational programing utilizing the content of the collections and the voices of the African American experience.
The Museum and Archives represents over 30 years of book collecting by Dr. Vivian and his wife, Octavia, as well as the personal book collection of Dr. Doris Derby of Atlanta, Georgia. Many of the books were written and published in the 1700s and 1800s. The collection will be housed in a replica of the Vivians’ personal library, which will be constructed in Rodney Cook Sr. Park.
More information at: https://ctovma.org/.
Last updated on May 6, 2023