Saidiyah Hartman Photo: MacArthur Foundation Saidiyah Hartman was sitting in a bar in Durban, South Africa when she got the news: she had just been awarded a $625,000 MacArthur Fellowship. Accompanied by one of her best friends, Hartman—a literary scholar and cultural historian—was in town to help plan a meeting for a black studies mobile academy. “I was in disbelief and then in tears,” Hartman told The Root over the phone Tuesday night. For three and a half weeks, Hartman has kept the good news secret—even from the good friend who was with her on the trip—a feat she says wasn’t too difficult because it felt so surreal, it was hard to process. “I said, ‘Well send a letter to my house,’ because I was like, is this a cruel prank or something?” She laughs. “It’s hard to really process it.” Announced Wednesday morning, the prestigious MacArthur fellowship—also known as the “genius” grants—awards $625,000 directly to individual recipients. Previous winners include writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the poet Claudia Rankine. The grants have become among the highest honors for the country’s most influential artists, academics, and thinkers. Most importantly, the sizeable grant frees its recipients to pursue […]

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