The U.S. Postal Service is celebrating the history-making efforts of African American literary icon August Wilson with a commemorative Forever stamp as part of its Black Heritage series.

The post office will honor the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright during a virtual ceremony Thursday at 11:30 a.m. The event will be hosted on USPSโ€™ Facebook and Twitter pages.

USPS will issue a stamp honoring playwright August Wilson as part of its Forever series. (Courtesy of USPS)
USPS will issue a stamp honoring playwright August Wilson as part of its Forever series. (Courtesy of USPS)

Special guests will include Wilsonโ€™s daughter Sankina Ansari and his widow Constanza Romero, trustee of the August Wilson Trust.

Wilson, who died in 2005 at age 60, is probably best known for โ€œAmerican Century Cycle,โ€ a series of 10 plays โ€” including โ€œFencesโ€ and โ€œMa Raineyโ€™s Black Bottomโ€ โ€” largely set in Pittsburghโ€™s Hill District, the neighborhood where Wilson grew up.

The Wilson stamp, which will be the 44th in the Black Heritage series, features an oil painting of the playwright based on a 2005 photograph, with a picket fence behind him as a nod to โ€œFences.โ€

For more information, go to usps.com/blackheritage-augustwilson.

This correspondent is a guest contributor to The Washington Informer.

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