About the Center

In 1971, novelist and Academy Award winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg, having already started a writers’ workshop in the Watts section of Los Angeles, asked Fred Hudson, playwright and former staff writer for Paramount Pictures, to co-found a similar program in New York.  Knowing full well the dearth of professional opportunities for minority writers in America, Mr. Hudson agreed, and the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center was born.

Over the years, the Center has become integral to the Harlem and greater New York City arts communities and has helped to launch the careers of some of country’s most acclaimed African American writers, actors, and directors.  Collectively, FDCAC alumni have won dozens of awards and fellowships, from ABC's to Nickelodeon's to the O’Neill, and published over 100 books at such leading houses as Doubleday, Random House, and Dial.  Recent works published by FDCAC alumni include Rosemary Bray’s Unafraid of the Dark, Patrick Bass’s In Our Own Image, Andrea Smith’s Friday Nights at Honeybee’s, Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints, Jaira Placide’s Fresh Girl, and George Alexander’s Why We Make Movies.  In theatre, television, and film, stellar Center alumni include Danny Glover, S. Epatha Merkerson, Garrett Morris, and Bill Duke.  Also getting their start in FDCAC workshops are Kevin Arkadie, playwright, TV writer/producer, and creator of the series New York Undercover; Kermit Frazier, playwright and head writer for the children’s television series Ghostwriter; and Carol Mayes, writer/director of the films Commitments and Rituals.