Frank Yerby publishes The Foxes of Harrow — first Black author commercial bestseller

Frank Yerby published The Foxes of Harrow in 1946, a historical romance set on a Louisiana plantation, which sold over one million copies in its first year — the first book by an African American author to achieve such sales. He also became the first Black author to have a novel purchased for Hollywood adaptation, when 20th Century Fox optioned it; the 1947 film starred Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara.