"Carlene Hatcher Polite"(August 28,1932-December 7,2009)

Was an American Writer.She trained at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and then danced professionally from 1955 to 1963 in New York and Detroit.She also worked for civil rights organizations,including the Detroit Council for Human Rights and the NAACP.In 1964 she moved to Paris where her first book The Flagellants was published in French in 1966,and was subsequently published in English in 1967.The book received critical acclaim,with Mel Watkins in The New York Times Book Review stating it was "complex,scathing and often brilliant depiction of the disintegration of a black couple's relationship,"and that it "was among the first fictional works by a black woman to focus directly on the theme of the sometimes bitter antagonism between black men and women." Carlene published her second book Sister X and the Victims of Foul Play,about the investigation into the death of a black nightclub dancer in Paris in 1975.She joined the University at Buffalo in 1971,where she taught creative writing,African American history and literature until her retirement in 2000.Carlene had tenure bestowed upon her and served on several notable committees,as well as chaired the American Studies Department for a short while.She was famous at the University for her amiable teaching style,unique and stylish garments that she every-day as well as her near encyclopedic knowledge of a wide breadth of subjects including:race,gender,history,sexuality,spirituality,religion,quantum mechanics,sports and theater.Her classroom assignments often centered around books such as the African Origin of Civilization by Cheikh Diop,Stolen Legacy by James and countless others.Her writing assignments included four standards papers..1 page each that served as mid-term and final papers---centering around being in love,falling out of love and having a student write about the opposite gender.In her tenure at the University she only had two Teacher's Assistants (John Ransom and Brian Kyle Doyle(nee Kyle Phoenix) feeling that their personal abilities and writing interest as well as knowledge were sufficient to serve her classrooms needs.Carlene decided that she completed all that she had to say in fiction and purposefully did not publish anything else she continued to write fiction and non-fiction and was and avid fan of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work.Besides her husband, Patrwhom she married in 2003,she is as so survived by two daughters Gylda Morton Bennett and Lila Polite,and a grandchild. Another grandchild died before her.