To Our Readers

By ELIZABETH VALK LONG President

Last October, time senior correspondent Jack White noted that in the same week, one African-American author, Toni Morrison, won the Nobel Prize for Literature while another, Poet Laureate Rita Dove, read her work at the White House. Not long thereafter, another black poet, Yusef Komunyakaa, won the Pulitzer Prize. White began to wonder whether these events and the increasing prominence of other African-American authors signaled a black literary efflorescence.

Subsequent reporting by associate editor Janice Simpson and editorial assistant Breena Clarke on dance, film, music and theater quickly revealed that the artistic flowering was much broader than a literary one. "In all of these fields," says White, "what struck me was the audacity and exuberance of the artists, some of whom had moved beyond racial themes and so-called black styles, and felt free to explore any form." That freedom is the keynote of this week's cover story, written by White.

For Simpson, covering the Black Renaissance was her final reportorial outing before taking over a new assignment: deputy chief of correspondents, in charge of TIME's national-news coverage. As enthusiastic as Simpson is about her new duties, which include supervising 68 correspondents in 11 bureaus, her work on this story reminded her of how much she will miss her first love, covering the arts. Says she: "Nothing makes me happier than being in the audience in a darkened theater, playing some small part in the magic happening onstage."

Clarke, who focused on black theater, had firsthand experience of that magic: she was a professional actress before joining TIME in 1984. Today she keeps in touch with the field through her husband, actor Helmar Cooper.

The cover portrait of choreographer Bill T. Jones, as well as all the photographs of black artists accompanying the story, were shot by staff photographer Ted Thai. For good measure, Thai also took the striking portraits of Yale scholar Harold Bloom and hot young filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in this week's issue. As deputy picture editor MaryAnne Golon points out, "Ted has a gift for thinking of imaginative ways to incorporate an artist's discipline into a photograph." To incorporate the marvelous achievements of today's African-American artists into the frame of a cover story, all of our Black Renaissance team have shown similar gifts.