Friday from the Archives: “Local and National Efforts to Honor George Moses Horton” by Marjorie Hudson in NCLR 1999
George Moses Horton is regarded to be the first Black Southern author with his book The Hope of Liberty published in 1829, while he was still enslaved. His work in and around the UNC campus propelled him into regional fame. Marjorie Hudson, a little over a hundred years after Horton’s likely death, decided to pursue local honors for the acclaimed poet.
“In 1997, inspired by the example of Sam Ragan and the statewide honors given Horton at the Literary Hall
of Fame, and urged on by poets Jaki Shelton Green and Barbara Lorrie, I began to consider ways to honor
Horton as a local poet laureate,” wrote Hudson in our 1999 issue. This before local poet laureates were commonplace across the Triangle and state. “Marsha Warren of the Paul Green Society suggested I use the phrasing “historic poet laureate” since we might want to honor living poets as laureates here someday. I circulated a petition and made up educational packets for county commissioners to consider, and in April, the commissioners, under Pollard’s leadership, voted to proclaim Horton “Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County.”
As is often the case, Hudson discovered several other local people were also bringing Horton’s work to new readers. She said, “Almost concurrently with the release of [UNC Press] The Black Bard of North Carolina, as well as the first Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Dr. Harris [at UNC] announced the George Moses Horton Society’s mission to “encourage sustained scholarly focus on the works of African-American poets and to foster presentation and publishing opportunities for that scholarship.”
There is now a historical marker in Chatham County noting where Horton lived for many years. We look forward to more scholarly writing on Horton’s work, perhaps using the Special Collection at Wilson Library at UNC-CH.
Read the entire essay on Gale Cengage and pick up a 1999 issue today!
