Opinion Celebrates Black History Month: Walter Mosley

Black History Month: Walter Mosley.

Mosley is a prolific author, screenwriter and playwright who has taught for more than 30 years.  Mosley’s breakthrough novel, Devil In A Blue DressThe book, published in 1990. Mosley was 34 when he published his first book. He stated that before becoming a literary star, he tried many different things.

The novel introduces us to Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a Black factory worker in post-World War II Los Angeles, who gets laid off from his job. He is very attached to his South Los Angeles home and the way he lives. So he accepts an odd job that leads him into a maze of mystery and trouble. Easy leverages his intelligence, skills and friends’ help to resolve the mystery and makes more money than he expected. So, Easy decides to work for himself as a private detective—thus, a potboiler detective series with a Black male hero is born.

In 1995 Devil In A Blue DressDenzel Washington starred in the feature-length film. Easy Rawlins is featured in fourteen more novels and gives us an insight into Los Angeles Black Life and the underbelly.

Mosley was a leader and integral to Black History’s advancement. His fiction has captured a world often ignored, painted or forgotten. Los Angeles’ Black culture is complex and takes many forms. It’s not just, “Boys N’ The Hood” and Snoop Dog, as much as I appreciate both of those contributions to the Black lexicon. Mosley’s lens invites readers into the different worlds, different perspectives, and varied tableau of the Black experience. Mosley is an historian who uses fiction to teach others and disseminate his information.

In the introduction to MasterClass, he said it himself.

“The Black male heroes are the major characters in my novel, because there are very few novels written about Black male heroes.

“If you want to be in the history of the culture, then you have to exist in the fiction. If you don’t exist in the literature, your people don’t exist.”

As Snoop would say, “Fo’ Shizzle,” and much respect. At 70 years old (Mosley’s birthday is on Saturday), he is still embedding the Black experience into history, kicking ass through his literature and influence, and always taking names.

Mosley became most concerned by the dearth of diversity at all levels of publishing. He founded The Publishing Certificate Program, which he co-founded with City University of New York. It brings together experts from diverse backgrounds to provide internships or jobs for students who are economically disadvantaged and of racially diverse background.

These are my thoughts about Walter Mosley: author, trailblazer and Black historian.