Virginia Hamilton was an American children's author whose work explored the African-American experience, which she called Liberation Literature. She is best known for M. C. Higgins, the Great (1974), which won the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal in 1975. Her nonfiction includes Her Stories, a mix of folktales and true stories about African American women, and Many Thousand Gone, a history of African Americans from slavery to freedom. Hamilton died in 2002.
