RITA DOVE

On Tuesday, the Library of Congress announced that 46-year-old Ada Limón had been named the 24th U.S. poet laureate, officially called the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

It began as a prize-winning magazine issue and became a cultural flashpoint, and now “The 1619 Project” is coming out as a book.

He was known for his plain-spoken poems that drew universal meaning from everyday occurrences.

Two books based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning “1619 Project” will be released this fall, with contributions from Jesmyn Ward, Jason Reynolds, Ibram X.

Music artist and actress Queen Latifah is among the honorees being recognized by Harvard University this year for their contributions to black history and culture. Harvard is set to award the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal to Queen Latifah and six other recipients on October 22. The Cambridge, Massachusetts, school's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research will be presenting the medal. The award is named after Du Bois, a scholar, writer, editor, and civil rights pioneer who became the first black student to earn a doctorate from Harvard in 1895.