So here is a man who passed for white because he wanted to be a writer, and he did not want to be a Negro writer.

He would have had to be a Negro writer, which was something he did not want to be.

Solomon now began discussing American Negro writers he admired.

"The new generation of Negro writers and artists have led the way," the editor continued.

Anatole Broyard wanted to be a writer - and not just a "Negro writer" consigned to the back of the literary bus.

With her part-African great-grandfather from Martinique, the French novelist Colette would have had to pass for white here in the United States or take her chances as a Negro writer.

During this period, "whether African American writers acquiesced in or kicked against the label, they knew what was at stake in accepting or contesting their identification as Negro writers."

He fled in order to see himself and his writing beyond an African American context and to be read as not "merely a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer".

Mr. Ellison, who was born in Oklahoma City in 1914 and died in New York in 1994, always identified himself as an "American Negro writer."

I wanted to prevent myself from becoming merely a Negro; or, even, merely a Negro writer.