Miriam DeCosta-Willis Add a review

Miriam DeCosta-Willis (November 1, 1934 – January 7, 2021) was an American educator, writer, and civil rights activist. The first African-American faculty member at Memphis State University, having previously been denied admission to the school as a graduate student due to her race, she spent her career as a professor of Romance languages and African-American studies at a variety of colleges in Memphis, Tennessee, and the Washington, D.C., area. From the 1960s, she was active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She published more than a dozen books throughout her career, largely dealing with Afro-Latino literature and Black Memphis history.