Clifton L. Taulbert

Clifton L. Taulbert has been honored throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Africa and the Middle East as a gifted writer of warm, honest and heartfelt stories.

The opening volume of his memoirs, Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored, was among the first foreign books provided to Nelson Mandela-now President of South Africa-after his release from prison. Letters praising Once Upon a Time have come from members of South Africa Parliament and from Mayor Yossi Peretz of Tiberias, Israel, who found it to be of great cultural value when his city became home to many Ethiopian Jews. And in 1996, a critically acclaimed film that was made from the book was selected for showing to athletes from around the world in Atlanta's Olympic Village.

The second volume of Taulbert's memoirs, The Last Train North, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is scheduled to become Taulbert's next major film. It was followed in 1997 by Watching Our Crops Come In in which Taulbert bears witness to the Civil Rights movement as it enveloped the people of Glen Allan, his Mississippi Delta home. His fourth book, Eight Habits of the Heart, based on his lectures about the values he learned from his elders-the "porch people" of the Mississippi Delta-was published in 1997. The Corporation for National Service included excerpts from Habits as part of the 1997 Historical Presidents' Summit for America's Future.

It is the compelling voices of Taulbert's Glen Allan family and friends that inhabit the pages of his books and strike a deep chord in the hearts of those who hear him lecture throughout the world. Audiences share Taulbert's affection for the voices he has carried with him from his youth-the voices of his elders, who gathered their children together on their porches, which were their principal meeting places during the days of legal segregation. Despite the hardships and uncertainties of their own lives, they managed to build a strong community for their children, imbuing them with hope and providing them with a haven for their dreams.