Willard Savoy

WILLARD SAVOY, a native of Washington, D.C., was born in 1916 and died there in 1976. In life as in his writing, he was a passionate and active advocate of civil rights. He served in the Air Force during World War II and later while working on Alien Land, as the service was undergoing desegregation. The unfinished novel that was to follow Alien Land was deemed too inflammatory for publication in the 1950s. ROBERT BURNS STEPTO is Professor of English, African American Studies, and American...See more

WILLARD SAVOY, a native of Washington, D.C., was born in 1916 and died there in 1976. In life as in his writing, he was a passionate and active advocate of civil rights. He served in the Air Force during World War II and later while working on Alien Land, as the service was undergoing desegregation. The unfinished novel that was to follow Alien Land was deemed too inflammatory for publication in the 1950s. ROBERT BURNS STEPTO is Professor of English, African American Studies, and American Studies at Yale University, and the author of Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography (1998), which includes three Notable American Essays (1995-1997). RICHARD YARBOROUGH, editor of the Northeastern Library of Black Literature, is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. See less