Before Columbus Foundation

07/29/2026

https://apnews.com/article/stephen-colbert-anticensorship-award-late-show-fd919fac19606eabf5d47dd5c207cd0a

Stephen Colbert has received an “anti-censorship” award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The foundation, based in Oakland, California, champions diversity in U.S. literature and culture.

01/31/2026

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/literature-canons-books-arts/

The origins of the Before Columbus Foundation.

12/15/2025

Baraka Books, the Before Columbus Foundation, and City Lights celebrate the publication of BLIND PERSISTENCE: The History of the Before Columbus Foundation, with Ishmael Reed, Justin Desmangles, and Shawn Wong in conversation.
https://citylights.com/events/before-columbus-foundation-book-launch-party/

The Before Columbus Foundation, founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed and others, remains “dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature.” It operates on the premise that storytelling traditions existed thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, which counters the myth that storytelling begins with the Puritan settlement. The foundation established the American Book Awards in 1978, which has recognized hundreds of writers who otherwise would have been ignored. Its board of directors includes three MacArthur Fellows, three former U.S. Poet Laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, a winner of the Booker Prize, and a recipient of a Presidential medal.

BLIND PERSISTENCE is the Before Columbus story as told by a host of leading American poets, novelists, public intellectuals. Contributors include Wajahat Ali, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nancy Mercado, Margaret Porter Troupe, Shawn Wong and more.

09/16/2025

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/joy-reid-and-percival-everett-among-winners-of-the-46th-annual-american-book-awards

Former MSNBC host Reid, who left MSNBC in February soon after the network canceled her prime time show “The ReidOut, was awarded the foundation's anti-censorship prize.

06/13/2025

06/06/2025