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Production of an anthology of African American poetry and an accompanying series of reading and discussion programs.

Library of America requests a grant in the amount of $458,418 in partial support of Lift Every Voice: Why African American Poetry Matters Today, a major national initiative to explore and reassess the multifaceted African American poetic tradition, its complex engagement with American history over 250 years, and its ongoing relevance to our national life. The project has two related objectives. One is to bring together Americans of varied backgrounds around the country to engage with the richness of this essential American tradition in ways that illuminate the continuities and discontinuities between past and present and offer context and insight into questions that remain of vital national importance. The second is to make permanently available a groundbreaking anthology reflecting several generations of scholarly and archival research and rediscovery that will encourage exploration and discussion of the tradition’s meanings and resonances long after the project is over.