ABSTRACT
Era Belle Thompson was born in Des Moines, Iowa. She received her B.A. degree from Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1938 and 1940 she did postgraduate work in journalism at Northwestern University, and, after working from 1942 to 1947 as a senior interviewer of the United States and Illinois State Employment Service, she joined the Johnson Publishing Company as Associate Managing Editor. She is still an employee of that firm, which publishes Ebony and Negro Digest. In 1946 she published American Daughter, an autobiography written as a result of a fellowship received from the Newberry Library. In 1949 she was a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference fellow, and in 1953, to gather material for the Johnson Publishing Company, she was sent on a tour of Africa. The excerpt in this anthology, written on the basis of her experience on that trip, is taken from Africa, Land of My Fathers.
