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.