Endesha Ida Mae Holland, American playwright, educator. Recipient Spotlight award National Coalition Black Women, Buffalo, 1989, Star award Jackson State University Alumni, New York City, 1989, Distinguished Lecturer award California State University Dominguez Hills, 1989.
Background
She never knew her father and was raped at age eleven. In 1965 a fire broke out in her family"s home, killing her mother. She said afterward that she believed the Ku Klux Klan had firebombed the house in retaliation for her civil rights work.
Education
She studied at the University of Minnesota beginning in 1965, where she helped start an African-American studies department, and initiated Women Helping Offenders (World Health Organization), a prison-aid program
Career
Later she was expelled from school and became a prostitute. After following a man she hoped would hire her as a prostitute to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee office, she began volunteering there. In all, she was jailed thirteen times for her civil rights work.
She got a high school equivalency diploma, encouraged by her colleagues in the civil rights movement.
In 1979 she earned a bachelor"s degree in African-American studies from the University of Minnesota, followed by a master"s in American Studies in 1984 and a Doctor of Philosophy in American studies in 1986. In 1981 she was awarded the $1,000 National Lorraine Hansberry Award for the second-best play of 1981.
In 1983, she took Endesha as her first name in order to honor her African heritage. She taught at the State University of New York, Buffalo from 1985 to 1993.
She was also a professor of theater at the University of Southern California, which she retired from in 2003.
She died from complications of ataxia. She was the author of six plays, and was most famous for writing "From the Mississippi Delta," which was performed by the Negro Ensemble Company, at the Goodman Theater in Chicago and at the Young Vic in London. She also wrote a memoir of the same name, published by Simon & Schuster in 1997.
A 1998 short documentary called Doctor Endesha Ida Mae Holland is about her.
She was also interviewed as part of the 1994 feature documentary film Freedom on My Mind.
Membership
Member African-American Theatre Conference (executive member, public relations since 1987), Nia Writers Workshop, The Dramatists Guild, Minority Faculty Staff (executive member, recording secretary since 1985).