Her novel This Child's Gonna Live, published in 1969, was acclaimed by critics and "was among the first to focus on the confluence of race, class and sex".
At Howard University, she was mentored by Sterling Allen Brown and Owen Dodson, and first met poet Langston Hughes, who became a lifelong friend.
There she wrote, worked for a small printing and publishing firm, and helped to found the Philadelphia Writers' Workshop.
In 1957, she moved to New York City and joined the Harlem Writers Guild, of which she served as a vice-president, and was involved in many political causes, including African and African-American liberation, as well as anti-war work.
[1] Told from the perspective of Mariah Upshur, a young woman living in a small fishing village in Maryland, the book depicts the struggle to survive under the multiple pressures of racism, poverty, and disease.