As a monumental figure in education and poetry, Mari Evans also played roles in shaping women’s history, politics, music, and drama.  Born on July 16, 1923, in Toledo, Ohio, Evans’ mother passed away when Evans was ten.  Her father immediately felt the need to encourage her in any way he could, cultivating her talent of writing that would later serve as her main career focus. After attending public schools in her hometown, Evans attended the University of Toledo in the 1940s where she studied fashion design but left without a degree.  Her interests shifted to writing poetry and by 1969 she was a writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue where she taught courses in African American Literature.  In 1969 she published her first work Where Is All the Music? followed by her more famous I Am a Black Woman (1970).  During this time Evans also worked as a producer, writer, and director of The Black Experience (1968-1973), a history documentary which aired on prime time in Indianapolis.  She also worked in theatre, adapting the musical Eyes (1979) from Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God as well as writing a choreopoem, River of My Song, and a one-woman theatre […]