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The childhood home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Pittsburgh native August Wilson was dedicated as a museum to the Hill District community that raised him.
Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet August Wilson was honored on Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022, with the grand opening of the August Wilson House – the artist’s childhood home renovated as an arts center for the Hill District, or “the Hill.”
Wilson was born in 1945 and spent his first 13 years with his mother and five siblings in the home in the formerly multi-ethnic Hill that turned almost entirely Black after 1968.
Wilson is known for a series of 10 plays, jointly called “The Pittsburgh Cycle,” which chronicled Black life and heritage in the 20th century.
Mindful Media was on-site to capture behind-the-scenes of the two-day celebration. The event featured addresses and appearances by: Wilson’s family members; actors Russell Hornsby and Denzel Washington, both of whom starred in the film adaptation of Wilson’s “Fences” alongside Viola Davis and Stephen McKinley Henderson; former CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation Bill Strickland, Pittsburgh’s first Black Mayor Ed Gainey, Hill District leaders and more.
