Pinkie Gordon Lane

Brief

     Lane (1923-2008) was an educator and poet who, in 1967, became the first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. She published five books of poetry: Wind Thoughts, The Mystic Female, I Never Scream: New and Selected Poems, Girl at the Window, and Elegy for Etheridge, with The Mystic Female earning a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1979.

     While her contemporaries criticized her work for not explicitly focusing on Black themes or experiences, she maintained her artistic independence, writing extensively about nature, love, and universal human experiences. As the first woman to chair Southern University's English Department (1974-1986) and Louisiana's first Black Poet Laureate (1989-1992), she broke barriers in academia and literature and cemented her legacy as an influential literary voice. In recognition of her achievements and indelible mark, in 2022 LSU's Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to name its graduate school the Pinkie Lane Gordon Graduate School.

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Collection & Papers‍

1. Louisiana State University Libraries, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library.

Collection contains personal and professional correspondence, images, poetry, manuscripts, conference and instructional materials, publications, magazines and journals, audio tapes of Pinkie Gordon Lane, and documents from Lane’s personal and professional relationships.

2. Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, Pinkie Gordon Lane Papers

Collection contains biographical materials, photos, personal correspondence , teaching materials from Lane’s time at Southern University, her published poetry, reviews of her works, newspaper clippings, Lane’s personal and collected ephemera.