Louise Meriwether: ‘Daddy Was a Number Runner’ author and activist dies aged 100

Louise Meriwether was an American novelist, essayist, journalist, activist, and author of children’s biographies of historically significant African Americans who lived from May 8, 1923, to October 10, 2023.

Her debut book, Daddy Was a Number Runner (1970), which is based in part on her experiences growing up in Harlem, New York City, during the Great Depression and the years following the Harlem Renaissance, is the book for which she is most known.

With a foreword by James Baldwin, she published her first and most popular book, Daddy Was a Number Runner, in 1970. This classic novel blends personal elements to describe growing up in Harlem during the Great Depression and the years following the Harlem Renaissance.

Louise Meriwether: ‘Daddy Was a Number Runner’ author and activist dies aged 100

Author and activist Louise Meriwether, whose first book “Daddy Was a Number Runner” was universally hailed as a breakthrough and essential depiction of race, gender, and class, has passed away. She was 100 years old. She published her book in 1970, and thousands of copies were sold.
It contributed to the emergence of Black women’s voices in literature, along with contemporaneous works by Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou like “The Bluest Eye” and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” respectively.