Ishmael Reed

Early life, family and college drop out

Reed was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His family moved to Buffalo, New York, when he was a child, during the Great Migration. After attending local schools, Reed attended the University at Buffalo, though he withdrew from college in his junior year, partly for financial reasons, but mainly because he felt he needed a new atmosphere to support his writing and music. He said of this decision, "This was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time because I was able to continue experimenting along the lines I wanted, influenced by [Nathanael] West and others. I didn't want to be a slave to somebody else's reading lists. I kind of regret the decision now because I've gotten some of the most racist and horrible things said to me because of this".

Reed said in a 2022 interview for World Literature Today: "I come from a family of Tennessee fighters. Like my mother, who was abandoned and had to make do with her skills. She organized two strikes. One of the strikes was of the maids at a hotel in Buffalo. The other was at a department store, where the Black women were assigned to do stock work and the white women were salespersons. She became the first Black salesperson as a result of the strike. She wrote a book I deeply admire called Black Girl from Tannery Flats. But when she died, her achievement was that she became a salesperson. She was a fighter."

Career

In 1962, Reed moved to the Lower East Side of New York City, and founded Advance, a community newspaper for Newark, New Jersey, as well as co-founding with Walter Bowart the East Village Other, which became a well-known underground publication. Reed was also a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop (he attended his first Umbra meeting in Spring 1963, with others present including Lorenzo Thomas, Askia Touré, Charles Patterson, David Henderson, Albert Haynes, and Calvin Hernton), some of whose members helped establish the Black Arts Movement and promoted a Black Aesthetic. Although Reed never participated in that movement, he has continued to research the history of black Americans. While working on his novel Flight to Canada (1976), he coined the term "Neo-Slave narrative", which he used in 1984 in "A Conversation with Ishmael Reed" by Reginald Martin. During this time, Reed also made connections with musicians and poets such as Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, and Albert Ayler, which contributed to Reed's vast experimentation with jazz and his love for music.

Reed has served as editor and publisher of various small presses and journals since the early 1970s. These include Yardbird Reader (which he edited from 1972 to 1976), and Reed, Cannon and Johnson Communications, an independent publishing house begun with Steve Cannon and Joe Johnson that focused on multicultural literature in the 1970s. Reed's current publishing imprint is Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, and his online literary publication, Konch Magazine, features an international mix of poetry, essays and fiction. In 1970, Reed moved to the West Coast to begin teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for 35 years, retiring from there in 2005. He serves as a Distinguished Professor at California College of the Arts.

Among the writers first published by Reed when they were students in his writing workshops are Terry McMillan, Mona Simpson, Mitch Berman, Kathryn Trueblood, Danny Romero, Fae Myenne Ng, Brynn Saito, Mandy Kahn, John Keene, and Frank B. Wilderson III. Reed was one of the producers of The Domestic Crusaders, a two-act play about Muslim Pakistani Americans written by his former student, Wajahat Ali. Its first act was performed at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Hall in Washington, D.C., on November 14, 2010, archived on the Center's website.

Reed is the founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, which since 1980 has annually presented the American Book Awards and the Oakland chapter of PEN, known as the "blue-collar PEN", and also gives annual awards to writers.

Reed's archives are held by the Special Collections at the University of Delaware in Newark. Ishmael Reed: An Exhibition, curated by Timothy D. Murray, was shown at the University of Delaware Library from August 16 to December 16, 2007. established a three-year collaboration between the non-profit and Oakland-based Second Start Literacy Project in 1998. A 1972 manifesto inspired a major visual art exhibit, NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, curated by Franklin Sirmans for the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, where it opened on June 27, 2008, and subsequently traveled to P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City, and the Miami Art Museum through 2009. Between 2012 and 2016, Reed served as the first SF Jazz Poet Laureate from SF JAZZ, the leading non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast. An installation of his poem "When I Die I Will Go to Jazz" appears on the SFJAZZ Center's North Gate in Linden Alley. His poem "Just Rollin' Along", about the 1934 encounter between Bonnie and Clyde and Oakland Blues artist L. C. Good Rockin' Robinson, is included in The Best American Poetry 2019.

Influences

Speaking about his influences, Reed has said, "I've probably been more influenced by poets than by novelists—the Harlem Renaissance poets, the Beat poets, the American surrealist Ted Joans. Poets have to be more attuned to originality, coming up with lines and associations the ordinary prose writer wouldn't think of." Among writers from the Harlem Renaissance for whose work Reed has expressed admiration are Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, George Schuyler, Bruce Nugent, Countee Cullen, Rudolph Fisher and Arna Bontemps. In Chris Jackson's interview of Reed in the Fall 2016 edition of The Paris Review, Reed discusses many literary influences, including Dante, the Celtic Revival poets, James Baldwin, George Schuyler, Nathanael West, Bob Kaufman, and Charles Wright.

Style and themes

Reed said in a 2011 interview with Parul Sehgal: "My work holds up the mirror to hypocrisy, which puts me in a tradition of American writing that reaches back to Nathaniel Hawthorne." Reed has also been quoted as saying: "So this is what we want: to sabotage history. They won't know whether we're serious or whether we are writing fiction ... Always keep them guessing."

Conjugating Hindi was deeply compelled by Reed's ideas of depicting a unification of multiple cultures. In this novel, he explores the congruencies and differences of African-American and South Asian American cultures though political discourse posed by white neo-conservative Americans toward both ethnicities. As described in the Los Angeles Review of Books, "it is brilliant — the same sort of experimental brilliance observable in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon or the cut-up technique of William S. Burroughs — and more accessible. ...Conjugating Hindi is a firebrand’s novel, the crackling, overflowing, pugnacious novel of someone who doesn't care about genre boundaries any more than he cares about historical boundaries, but who does care deeply about innovating."

Music

Reed has been the central participant in the longest ongoing music/poetry collaboration, known as Conjure projects, produced by Kip Hanrahan on American Clavé: Conjure I (1984) and Conjure II (1988), which were reissued by Rounder Records in 1995; and Conjure Bad Mouth (2005), whose compositions were developed in live Conjure band performances, from 2003 to 2004, including engagements at Paris's Banlieues Bleues, London's Barbican Centre, and the Blue Note Café in Tokyo. The Village Voice ranked the 2005 Conjure CD one of four best vocal albums released in 2006.

In 2007, Reed made his debut as a jazz pianist and bandleader with For All We Know by The Ishmael Reed Quintet. After he was invited by designer Grace Wales Bonner to play jazz piano accompanying her 2019 fashion show at the Serpentine Gallery in London, he received publicity in Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. In 2008, Reed was honored as Blues Songwriter of the Year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame Awards. A David Murray CD released in 2009, The Devil Tried to Kill Me, includes two songs with lyrics by Reed: "Africa", sung by Taj Mahal, and the title song performed by SF-based rapper Sista Kee. On September 11, 2011, in a Jazz à la Villette concert at the Grande Halle in Paris, the Red Bull Music Academy World Tour premiered three new songs with lyrics by Ishmael Reed, performed by Macy Gray, Tony Allen, members of The Roots, David Murray and his Big Band, Amp Fiddler and Fela! singer/dancers. In 2013, David Murray, with vocalists Macy Gray and Gregory Porter, released the CD Be My Monster Love, with three new songs with lyrics by Reed: "Army of the Faithful", "Hope is a Thing With Feathers", and the title track, "Be My Monster Love".

In 2022, Reed released his first album of original compositions, The Hands of Grace. In 2023, Konch Records released Blues Lyrics by Ishmael Reed, on which Reed reads his poetry with the East Coast Blues Caravan of All Stars featuring Ronnie Stewart, and guest artist David Murray.

Personal life

In 1960, Reed married Priscilla Thompson. Their daughter, Timothy (1960–2021), was born the same year. Timothy dedicated her semi-autobiographical book Showing Out (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003) to her father. Reed and Thompson divorced in 1970. Since 1970, he has been married to noted author, choreographer, and director Carla Blank. Their daughter, Tennessee, is also an author. He lives in Oakland, California.

Accolades

Bibliography

Novels and short fiction

• The Freelance Pallbearers, 1967
• Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, 1969
• Mumbo Jumbo, 1972
• The Last Days of Louisiana Red, 1974
• Flight to Canada, 1976
• The Terrible Twos, 1982
• Reckless Eyeballing, 1986
• The Terrible Threes, 1989
• Japanese by Spring, 1993
• Juice!, 2011
• Conjugating Hindi, 2018
• "The Fool Who Thought Too Much" (short story), 2020
• The Terrible Fours, 2021
• The Man Who Haunted Himself, 2022

Poetry and other collected works

• catechism of d neoamerican hoodoo church, 1969
• Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon or D Hexorcism of Noxon D Awful, 1970
• Neo-HooDoo Manifesto, 1972
• Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963–1970, 1972
• Chattanooga: Poems, 1973
• A Secretary to the Spirits, illustrated by Betye Saar, 1978
• New and Collected Poetry, 1988
• The Reed Reader, 2000
• New and Collected Poems, 1964–2006, 2006 (hardcover); New and Collected Poems, 1964–2007, 2007 (paperback)
• Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues, 2020

Plays and librettos

• The Wild Gardens of the Loup Garou, with poetry by Reed and Colleen McElroy and music by Carman Moore (1981, 1989).
• Gethsemane Park, libretto; Carman Moore, composer (premiere, Berkeley Black Repertory Theater, 1998).
• Ishmael Reed, THE PLAYS, a collection of six plays published by Dalkey Archive Press (2009), as listed with date of premiere: Mother Hubbard (1979 and revised in 1997 into a musical version); Savage Wilds (1988 Part I; 1990, Part II); Hubba City (1989, 1994); The Preacher and the Rapper (1995); C Above C Above High C (1997); Body Parts (2007), a play developed from a work first performed as Tough Love (2004).
• The Final Version, premiered at the Nuyorican Poets Café in December 2013.
• Life Among the Aryans, premiered in full production at the Nuyorican Poets Café in June 2018. Archway Editions, 2022.
• The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda, premiered in full production at the Nuyorican Poets Café in May 2019, published by Archway Editions in 2020.
• The Slave Who Loved Caviar, premiered in a virtual reading sponsored by the Nuyorican Poets Café in March 2021; a full production premiered December 23, 2021, at Theater for the New City. Archway Editions, October 2023.
• The Conductor, premiered in a full production at Theater for the New City on March 9, 2023, and returned for a second three-week run, August 24–September 10, 2023.
• The Shine Challenge 2024, premiered as a virtual staged reading sponsored by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe through April 15, 2024.
• The Shine Challenge 2025 premiered in a full production sponsored by Theater for the New City, January 30, 2025

Non-fiction

• Shrovetide in Old New Orleans: Essays, Atheneum, 1978
• God Made Alaska for the Indians: Selected Essays, Garland, 1982
• Writin' Is Fightin': Thirty-seven Years of Boxing On Paper. New York: Atheneum, 1989
• Airing Dirty Laundry. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993
• Oakland Rhapsody, The Secret Soul Of An American Downtown. Introduction and Commentary by Ishmael Reed and photographs by Richard Nagler. North Atlantic Books, 1995
• Blues City: A Walk in Oakland, Crown Journeys, 2003
• Another Day at the Front: Dispatches from the Race War, Basic Books, 2003
• Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media Bullies and Other Reflections, Da Capo Press, 2008
• Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the "Nigger Breakers", Baraka Books, 2010
• Going Too Far: Essays About America's Nervous Breakdown, Baraka Books, 2012
• The Complete Muhammad Ali, Baraka Books, July 2015
• "Jazz Musicians as Pioneer Multi-Culturalists, the Co-Optation of Them, and the Reason Jazz Survives" in American Multiculturalism in Context, Views from at Home and Abroad, edited by Sami Ludwig, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, pp. 189–199
• Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico, a collection of new and collected essays, Baraka Books, 2019
• Malcolm and Me, written and narrated by Reed, Audible, 2020

Anthologies edited by Reed

• 19 Necromancers From Now, Doubleday & Co., 1970
• Calafia: The California Poetry, Yardbird Pub. Co., 1978,
• Yardbird Lives!, co-edited with Al Young, Grove Press, 1978,
• • QUILT #1*, Ishmael Reed & Al Young, 1981.
• QUILT #2, A special issue devoted to the stories of students at University of California Berkeley. Ishmael Reed & Al Young, 1981.
• The Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology, Selections from the American Book Awards 1980–1990, co-edited with Kathryn Trueblood and Shawn Wong, W. W. Norton, 1991,
• The HarperCollins Literary Mosaic Series, General Editor of four anthologies edited by Gerald Vizenor, Shawn Wong, Nicolas Kanellos and Al Young, 1995–96
• MultiAmerica: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace, Viking/Penguin, 1997,
• From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900–2001, Da Capo Press, 2003,
• Pow Wow: 63 Writers Address the Fault Lines in the American Experience, short fiction anthology, edited with Carla Blank, Da Capo Press, 2009,
• Black Hollywood Unchained, non-fiction anthology, edited and with an Introduction by Reed, Third World Press, October 2015,
• Bigotry on Broadway, co-edited with Carla Blank, with an Introduction by Reed, Baraka Books, September 2021
• The Plague Edition of Konch Magazine, co-edited with Tennessee Reed, Ishmael Reed Publishing Co., 2024

Forewords

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Signet Classic Edition, 2013)
• The Collected Novels of Charles Wright (Harper Perennial, 2019)
• Cimarron: Freedom and Masquerade (Thames & Hudson, 2019)
• Surviving Financially in a Rigged System (Third World Press Foundation, 2019)
• John Oliver Killens's The Minister Primarily (Amistad, 2021)
• Selected Poems of Calvin C. Hernton (2023)
• John A. Williams' novel, The Man Who Cried I Am (Library of America, 2023)
• Awol Erizku's Mystic Parallax (Aperture, 2023).

Filmography

Discography

Kip Hanrahan has released three albums featuring lyrics by Reed:

• Conjure: Music for the Texts of Ishmael Reed (American Clave, 1985)
• Conjure: Cab Calloway Stands in for the Moon (American Clave, 1985)
• Conjure: Bad Mouth (American Clave, 2005)

David Murray has released several albums featuring lyrics by Reed:

• Sacred Ground (Justin Time, 2007) – "Sacred Ground" and "The Prophet of Doom" sung by Cassandra Wilson
• The Devil Tried to Kill Me (Justin Time, 2009) – "The Devil Tried to Kill Me" sung by Sista Kee and "Africa" sung by Taj Mahal
• Be My Monster Love (Motéma, 2013) – "Be My Monster Love" sung by Macy Gray and "Army of the Faithful (Joyful Noise)" and "Hope Is a Thing with Feathers" sung by Gregory Porter
• blues for memo (Doublemoon Records, 2016) - "Red Summer" sung by Pervis Evans Yosvany Terry has released one album including lyrics by Reed:
• New Throned Kings (SPassion 2014), CD nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award, with Ishmael Reed's lyrics on "Mase Nadodo". Releases produced by Ishmael Reed:
• His Bassist (Konch Records, Ishmael Reed, producer), featuring Ortiz Walton and including collaborations based on Reed's poetry, 2014
• For All We Know (Ishmael Reed Publishing, 2007) with the Ishmael Reed quintet, features David Murray (sax, bass clarinet and piano), and Carla Blank (violin), Roger Glenn (flute), Chris Planas (guitar), and Ishmael Reed (piano) on nine jazz standards, and three original collaborations with text by Reed and music composed by David Murray, were first performed by Ishmael Reed on this privately produced CD. David Murray then wrote different compositions for these Reed lyrics for the film and CD Sacred Ground.

Releases with music composed and performed by Ishmael Reed (piano):

• The Hands of Grace (Reading Group, 2022), with Roger Glenn (flute and sax), Ray Obiedo (guitar), Carla Blank (violin), Ronnie Stewart (electric guitar) and poet Tennessee Reed.
• Blues Lyrics by Ishmael Reed (Konch Records, 2023) with the West Coast Blues Caravan of All Stars: Art Hafen (trombone), Gregory "Gman" Simmons (bass), Michael Skinner (drums), Ronnie Stewart (drums and guitar), Michael Robinson (keyboard) with David Murray (saxophone) and Ishmael Reed (vocalist).

Selected public art installations

• 1972: "from the files of agent 22", Reed's poem, was posted in New York City buses and subways, by Poetry in Public Places, during an American International Sculptors Symposium project.
• 2004: A bronze plaque of Reed's poem "Going East", installed in the Berkeley Poetry Walk in Berkeley, California, designated a National Poetry Landmark by the Academy of American Poets
• 2010–13: A collaborative public art installation work, Moving Richmond, for Richmond, California's BART station, incorporates two Reed poems, written for this project after meetings with Richmond residents, into two mounted iron sculptures by Mildred Howard.
• 2011: "beware do not read this poem". Included in stone installation and audio recording by Rochester Poets Walk, Rochester, New York.
• 2013: SF JAZZ Center, which opened in January 2013, installs Reed's poem "When I Die I Will Go to Jazz" on the center's North Gate in Linden Alley.
• 2017: LIT CITY banner along Washington Street in Buffalo, New York, as part of a celebration of the city's literary history.

References

References

1. "Ishmael Reed Biography". Math.buffalo.edu.
2. Reed, Ishmael. (November 9, 2011). "Trouble Beside the Bay". [[The New York Times]].
3. Reed, Ishmael. (December 11, 2010). "What Progressives Don't Understand About Obama". The New York Times.
4. Reed, Ishmael. (February 4, 2010). "Fade to White". The New York Times.
5. Reed, Ishmael. (January 28, 2012). "Ishmael Reed on the Miltonian Origin of The Other". The New York Times.
6. Ludwig, Samuel. (December 18, 2002). "Ishmael Reed".
7. Juan-Navarro, Santiago. (2010). "Self-Reflexivity and Historical Revisionism in Ishmael Reed's Neo-Hoodoo Aesthetics". The Grove: Working Papers on English Studies, 17.
8. Mitchell, J. D.. (September 13, 2011). "At Work: Ishmael Reed on 'Juice!'". The Paris Review.
9. Elliot Fox, Robert. (September 20, 2011). "About Ishmael Reed's Life and Work". Modern American Poetry website.
10. Blank, Carla. (October 21, 2017). "Ishmael Reed (1938- )".
11. (2014). "The Norton Anthology of African American Literature". W. W. Norton and Company Inc..
12. (June 8, 2022). "Writing Without Permission: A Conversation with Ishmael Reed".
13. Reed, Ishmael. (2012). "Ishmael Reed on the Miltonian Origin of The Other".
14. Reed, Ishmael. (January 14, 2023). "A New Flame for Black Fire".
15. Miller, D. Scot. (June 23, 2017). "The Black Aesthetic (Anchor Books, 1972)". SFMOMA {{!}} San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
16. Davis, Matthew R.. (1996). "''{{'}}Strange, History. Complicated, Too{{'}}'': Ishmael Reed’s Use of African-American History in ''Flight to Canada.''". The Mississippi Quarterly.
17. [http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/a-conversation-with-ishmael-reed-by-reginald-martin/ "A Conversation with Ishmael Reed By Reginald Martin"] (interview conducted July 1–7, 1983, in [[Emeryville, California]]), ''The Review of Contemporary Fiction'', Summer 1984, Vol. 4.2. At Dalkey Archive Press.
18. Zamir, Shamoon. (1994). "An Interview with Ishmael Reed". [[Callaloo (journal).
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20. Miller, M. H.. (February 9, 2018). "A Blind Publisher, Poet — and Link to the Lower East Side's Cultural History". The New York Times.
21. "Joe Johnson".
22. [http://www.ishmaelreedpub.com ''Konch Magazine'']. An Ishmael Reed and Tennessee Reed Publication.
23. (April 5, 2022). "Ishmael Reed Wins Anisfield-Wolf Book Lifetime Achievement Award".
24. "Winners {{!}} 2022 Lifetime Achievement – Ishmael Reed". [[Cleveland Foundation]].
25. (May 20, 2022). "Super Bowl Insurrection: A Conversation with Ishmael Reed".
26. Goodstein, Laurie. (September 8, 2009). "A Pakistani-American Family Is Caught in Some Cultural Cross-Fire". The New York Times.
27. "Wajahat Ali".
28. "Finding Aids for Archival Collections – Ishmael Reed papers". University of Delaware Library Special Collections.
29. [http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/reed/index.html Special Collections], University of Delaware Library.
30. Conley, Eileen. "Ishmael Reed – The Oakland Artists Project".
31. Lark, Laura. (July 18, 2008). "'NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith' at the Menil Collection".
32. Suarez De Jesus, Carlos. (March 19, 2009). "NeoHooDoo at Miami Art Museum".
33. [http://www.sfjazz.org/about/laureates "SFJAZZ Laureates - Jim Goldberg & Ishmael Reed"] {{Webarchive. link. (June 25, 2014 , SF Jazz.)
34. [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Best-American-Poetry-2019/David-Lehman/9781982106560 "The Best American Poetry 2019"] at Simon & Schuster.
35. Steiner, Andy. (October 25, 2007). "Media Diet: Ishmael Reed".
36. Blain, Keisha N.. (October 7, 2019). "Writing for a Global Audience: An Interview with Poet Ishmael Reed". The North Star.
37. Jackson, Chris (Fall 2016), [https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6806/ishmael-reed-the-art-of-poetry-no-100-ishmael-reed "Ishmael Reed, The Art of Poetry No. 100"], ''The Paris Review'', No. 218.
38. Sehgal, Parul (March 14, 2011), [https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/46448-native-son-a-profile-of-ishmael-reed.html "Native Son: A Profile of Ishmael Reed"], ''[[Publishers Weekly]]''.
39. [[Margaret Busby. Busby, Margaret]] (October 21, 2000), [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/21/biography "Do the Harlem shuffle"], ''[[The Guardian]]''.
40. Felicelli, Anita. (September 8, 2018). "Satire and Subversion in Ishmael Reed's 'Conjugating Hindi'". Los Angeles Review of Books.
41. [[Jon Pareles. Pareles, Jon]] (September 21, 1983), [https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/21/arts/jazz-ishmael-reed-songs.html "JAZZ: Ishmael Reed Songs"], ''The New York Times''.
42. (December 19, 2006). "First Annual Jazz Poll Winners".
43. Scott, Ronald E.. (December 8, 2022). "REVIEWS: Ishmael Reed, Matthew Shipp".
44. Reed, Ishmael. (January 18, 2019). "Grace Wales Bonner tells Ishmael Reed about the 'rhythmicality' of her fashion".
45. Singer, Olivia (February 17, 2019), [https://www.vogue.co.uk/shows/autumn-winter-2019-ready-to-wear/wales-bonner "Wales Bonner"], ''Vogue''.
46. (September 19, 2023). "Tone Glow 102: Ishmael Reed".
47. Fusilli, Jim. (November 14, 2009). "Fusion, David Murray Style". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
48. Turner, Mark F.. (November 20, 2009). "David Murray and the Gwo ka Masters: The Devil Tried To Kill Me".
49. [http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/worldtour/paris/ "Paris: Questlove’s Afro-Picks"], Red Bull Music Academy World Tour 2012, September 11, 2011.
50. Sachs, Lloyd. (July 17, 2024). "David Murray Infinity Quartet: Be My Monster Love".
51. Scott, Ron. (December 8, 2022). "REVIEWS: Ishmael Reed, Matthew Shipp". [[New York Amsterdam News]].
52. Green, Bernice Elizabeth. (March 23, 2023). "Playwright Ishmael Reed's inspired play, 'The Conductor,' delivers timely messages".
53. Whiting, Sam. (February 14, 2021). "Timothy Reed, author and daughter of poet Ishmael Reed, dies at 60". SF Chronicle Datebook.
54. Lucas, Julian. (July 19, 2021). "Ishmael Reed Gets the Last Laugh".
55. Carla Blank's latest publication is ''Storming the Old Boys' Citadel: Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America'', Baraka Books, 2014, co-authored with Tania Martin. She is also author of [http://carlablank.com/ ''Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000''], Three Rivers Press, 2003.
56. "Conjure {{!}} Finalist, National Book Awards 1973 for Poetry". National Book Foundation.
57. "Mumbo Jumbo {{!}} Finalist, National Book Awards 1973 for Fiction". National Book Foundation.
58. "Ishmael Reed".
59. [http://www.gf.org/fellows/12065-ishmael-reed "Ishmael Reed, 1975 - US & Canada Competition, Creative Arts - Fiction"] {{webarchive. link. (July 14, 2014, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.)
60. Spina, Mary Beth (April 27, 1995), [http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/1995/04/3344.html "UB to Hold Commencement Ceremonies May 12-14"], News Center, University at Buffalo.
61. "Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Awards". Wallace Foundation.
62. Jet]]'', June 22, 1998, p. 8.
63. [https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/98legacy/06-01-1998.html "Writer Ishmael Reed, lecturer in UC Berkeley's English Department, wins MacArthur 'genius' fellowship"], News Release, Public Affairs. University of California, Berkeley, June 1, 1998.
64. Kipen, David. (March 29, 1999). "Hochschild, Chang Win Local Awards".
65. [https://www.theatermania.com/shows/new-york-city-theater/otto-rene-castillo-award-for-political-theatre_120426 "Otto Rene Castillo Award for Political Theatre"], ''TheaterMania''.
66. [http://www.jmek.net/lq2013b/events/barbary-coast-award-honors-ishmael-re "Barbary Coast Award Honors Ishmael Reed"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 17, 2015 , Litquake, October 2011. [https://archive.today/20140706195605/http://www.litquake.org/events/barbary-coast-award-honors-ishmael-re Archived] 2014.)
67. [http://www.litquake.org/about/barbary-coast-award "Barbary Coast Award Recipients"], Litquake.
68. link. (February 25, 2014)
69. (March 12, 2016). "Ishmael Reed: Premio alla carriera Alberto Dubito International". Premio Alberto Dubito di Poesia con Musica.
70. [http://www.audelco.org/ AUDELCO Awards], November 2017.
71. [https://retirement.berkeley.edu/ucbea/awards "Awards for Berkeley Emeriti"], UC Berkeley Retirement Center.
72. (April 5, 2022). "Ishmael Reed among winners of Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards". ABC News.
73. [https://hurstonwright.salsalabs.org/2023legacyawardsnominees "Hurston/Wright Foundation Announces 2023 Legacy Award Nominees and Merit Awardees"], Hurston/Wright Foundation, June 28, 2023.
74. Reed, Ishmael. (October 2020). "Not Throwing Away My Yacht".
75. [https://ishmaelreed.org/ "New Play: THE CONDUCTOR"], Ishmael Reed website.
76. [https://theaterforthenewcity.net/shows/the-conductor-august-2023/ "The Conductor by Ishmael Reed"] at Theater for the New City.
77. [https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/regional/THE-SHINE-CHALLENGE2024-3858263 "THE SHINE CHALLENGE, 2024 at Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Dates: (2/23/2024 - 4/15/2024)"]. ''Broadway World'', Off-Off-Broadway.
78. [https://www.broadwayworld.com/off-off-broadway/regional/THE-SHINE-CHALLENGE-2025-4287346 "THE SHINE CHALLENGE 2025 at Theater for the New City"], ''Broadway World'', 2025.
79. [https://www.weslpress.org/9780819500366/selected-poems-of-calvin-c-hernton/ "Selected Poems of Calvin C. Hernton"], Wesleyan University Press, 2023.
80. [https://www.loa.org/books/781-the-man-who-cried-i-am-paperback/ "John A. Williams: The Man Who Cried I Am"], Library of America.
81. [https://aperture.org/books/awol-erizku-mystic-parallax/ "Awol Erizku: Mystic Parallax"], Aperture.
82. [https://www.blackradionetwork.com/pdfstories/1268710806.pdf "BAMcinématek presents The Groundbreaking Bill Gunn, a tribute to the film work of the African American screenwriter and director, April 1-4"], News Release, Brooklyn Academy of Music, March 15, 2010.
83. "JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF THE TICKET".
84. "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story". PBS.
85. [http://hoodoo.stokedfilm.com/ ''The United States of Hoodoo''] {{Webarchive. link. (December 29, 2018)
86. Scheib, Ronnie. (May 6, 2013). "Film Review: 'Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic'".
87. "I Am Richard Pryor".
88. Risker, Paul. (February 17, 2021). "Rediscovering Spain".
89. Whiteis, David. (April 25, 2019). "David Murray/Black Saint Quartet featuring Cassandra Wilson: Sacred Ground".
90. Turner, Mark F.. (November 20, 2009). "David Murray and the Gwo ka Masters: The Devil Tried To Kill Me".
91. (January 27, 2019). "Jazz CD Preview and Survey: Years of Utter Beauty, Part 2".
92. Morris, Chris. (December 5, 2014). "Grammys: Beyonce, Sam Smith Nominated for Album of the Year (Full List)".
93. (December 19, 2014). "The 57th Annual Grammy Awards: The Full Nominee & Credits List".
94. Chinen, Nate. (June 9, 2014). "New Music: Jack White's 'Lazaretto,' About Controlling and Letting Go {{!}} YOSVANY TERRY – 'New Throned King'". The New York Times.
95. Blackwell, Matthew. "Albums {{!}} The Hands of Grace {{!}} Ishmael Reed {{!}} 2022".
96. Scott, Ronald E.. (September 14, 2023). "Omar Sosa at Dizzy’s, Jazz Gallery, Ishmael's Blues". New York Amsterdam News.
97. (June 2019). "BART Art Collection Inventory". San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District.
98. "Howard Artwork". Proto-inc.
99. "The Norton Anthology of African American Literature". W. W. Norton and Company Inc..
100. Lucas, Julian. (May 15, 2022). "The Yeehaw Papyrus". The New York Review of Books.
101. Lucas, Julian. (July 26, 2021). "Ishmael Reed Gets The Last Laugh".
102. Gilyard, Keith. (July 9, 2018). "Review of Ishmael Reed's 'Conjugating Hindi'".
103. Ross, Kent Chapin. (Spring 2007). "Towards Postmodern Multiculturalism: A New Trend of African American and Jewish American Literature Viewed Through Ishmael Reed and Philip Roth". Purdue University Press.
104. Spaulding, A. Timothy (2005), [https://archive.org/details/reformingpasthis0000spau/page/25 "The Conflation of Time in Ishmael Reed's ''Flight To Canada'' and Octavia Butler's ''Kindred''"], in ''History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative'', Columbia: Ohio State University Press, pp. 25–60.
105. Weixlmann, Joe. (Winter 1991). "African American Deconstruction of the Novel in the Work of Ishmael Reed and Clarence Major". MELUS.