Author Event: Freedom's Gate by Soyica Diggs Colbert in conversation with Farah Jasmine Griffin
Acclaimed historian Soyica Diggs Colbert captures a transformative period in American History when Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone converged on an underground Greenwich Village nightclub to give voice and soul to the Civil Rights Movement.
Join us for a marvelous conversation between Soyica Diggs Colbert and fellow author, Farah Jasmine Griffin on Friday, November 6th at 7pm.
Tickets are available now:
✍🏾📕 $35 ticket includes entry and an autographed copy of FREEDOM’S GATE: Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone Live at the New York Nightclub that Shaped the Civil Rights Movement.
💳 $10 ticket includes entry includes and a $10 Gladys Books & Wine Gift Card.
About Soyica Diggs Colbert:
Soyica is the Idol Family Professor at Georgetown University and a winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship. Author of the award-winning Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, she has written for the New York Times and Washington Post. She lives in Washington, DC.
About Farah Jasmine Griffin:
Farah is University Professor at Columbia University in the City of New York. She is the author or editor of eight works of criticism and non-fiction including If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (2001) and the award winning, critically acclaimed Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (W.W. Norton, 2021). Her forthcoming book, The Seer: Toni Morrison Among the Ruins will be published by Penguin in 2027.
About FREEDOM’S GATE: Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone Live at the New York Nightclub that Shaped the Civil Rights Movement:
In her riveting new group biography, Guggenheim fellow and Georgetown professor Soyica Diggs Colbert brings this extraordinary creative community to life, revealing how one nightclub became an unlikely incubator for Black artistic innovation and political awakening. Through extensive research and rich cultural history, Colbert illuminates the friendships, performances, and political action that emerged from the Gate and reverberated throughout American culture.
As friends and artists who shaped one another’s creative identities and political ideologies, the women of the Gate transformed both art and activism. Lorraine Hansberry, fresh from the success of A Raisin in the Sun, pushed beyond the confines of Broadway celebrity to become one of the most incisive political thinkers of her generation. Nina Simone fused classical rigor with fury and protest, ultimately channeling the violence of the civil rights era into songs such as “Mississippi Goddam,” which forever altered the possibilities of political music. South African singer Miriam Makeba brought international attention to apartheid and exile through performances that blended extraordinary artistry with urgent political testimony. Abbey Lincoln, alongside Max Roach, shattered expectations of jazz performance with We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, a searing musical declaration of Black liberation. And Maya Angelou—before becoming an internationally celebrated writer and memoirist—honed her voice as a performer, activist, and global citizen within this rich artistic world.