A fascinating group biography, from an award-winning author, of five Black women artists in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including Virago's own Maya Angelou, and how their friendships shaped their politics and art

Before Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone became household names, they needed a place to plot, plan, and practice. That place was the Village Gate nightclub.

The Gate became something that no one could have ever anticipated-a community centre, laboratory, venue, and safe haven, where Black art, culture, music, and politics mixed and mingled in the most powerful, sustaining ways.

FREEDOM'S GATE will be the first book to explore the friendships, works of art, and political projects of this highly influential group of Black female artists, who found a home there.