Fred Williams, Managing Editor

Toschia Moffett, Marketing Director

Rhonda M. Lawson, Public Relations Chair

David Floyd, Treasurer

Loren Alves, Finance

Michael Smith, Future Projects

Calvin Thomas, Future Projects

The organization was founded by attorney and author Toschia Moffett and journalist Monica Carter-Tagore, who, along with professor and author Frederick Williams and military journalist and author Rhonda M. Lawson, saw the need to expand the Divine Literary Tour to new heights. Over the past five years, DLT has conducted workshops and panel discussions at national events regarding the literary responsibility that authors have to write about the strength and beauty of our culture and heritage in works of fiction and non-fiction. Workshop topics have included diversity issues, popular culture, current literary trends, Harlem Renaissance, African American literature, and contemporary African American writers. DLT has also conducted one-day creative writing workshops in Los Angeles, Detroit, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

Consistent with the DLT mission is the establishment of an in-house publishing arm dedicated to producing books that reflect, within a positive framework, the rich African American culture. It is the association’s principal philosophy that knowledge of one’s heritage and culture is key to healthy growth among our young. If our youth do not know their history, then they really do not know who they are, and they become easy prey for those who produce devastatingly dangerous fiction and music.

Not only is it critical that our young read and understand their culture, but it must also be presented in a way that creates a sense of pride. Our youth need to read about strong Black men and women who accomplished magnificent feats. In 1941, Langston Hughes asked the question, “Where are the Black heroes in our literature?” One of the greatest of all our cultural icons was alluding to the failure of Black writers to create heroes in their works. Hughes went on to elaborate, “Where, in all our books is that compelling flame of spirit and passion that makes a man (and woman) say, ‘I, too, am a hero because my race has produced heroes’?”

It is the goal of DLP to fill that vacuum of which Mr. Hughes spoke. We welcome all manuscripts that meet our overall publishing philosophy, both fiction and non-fiction genres, for review.