Buckley was an acclaimed writer known for her novels detailing her family’s Black middle-class history.
Gail Lumet Buckley, author and daughter of Lena Horne, has died at 86. Buckley’s daughter confirmed her death occurred on July 18.
Born in 1937 to Horne and Louis Jordan Jones, a political operative, Buckley built a career for herself through novels focusing on her family’s Black middle-class background. Buckley spent her childhood between Brooklyn and Los Angeles before pursuing a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1959. At the time of her enrollment, the school was an independent women’s college. It later integrated into Harvard University in 1999.
Despite her mother’s successful career in Hollywood, Buckley veered toward academia and literature. However, she continued her mother’s mission of racial justice, serving as a counselor with the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students.
She officially began her career in journalism with a stint at Life magazine in 1962. She became a contributing writer for The New York Times, Vogue, and other publications. However, her first book, The Hornes: An American Family, was published in 1986. Its extensive detail into the livelihoods of the Black middle class captivated readers.
Buckley wrote the novel upon finding artifacts in a trunk belonging to her maternal grandfather. The items, ranging from photographs to letters and bills, went back six generations of Buckley’s family.
“Today, however, it is important to let people know ‘what’ I am,” she wrote in the introduction, The New York Times reported. “I identify myself as African American to let others know that I am one of America’s historical stepchildren. The quality of African American life, like that of all stepchildren, depends on the spiritual, philosophical, and political character of the stepparent and stepsiblings.”
Her legacy lives on as a prolific writer whose work sheds light on the unique histories of Black America. She is survived by two grandchildren and her two daughters, Amy and Jenny.
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Source: Black Enterprise
